


The Rain Before The Rainbow

by VirusError



Series: The End To The Begining The Begining To The End [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sparrow Academy (Umbrella Academy), Angst, Big Brother Diego Hargreeves, Canonical Character Death, Crying, Cussing, Detective Diego Hargreeves, Fluff, Foreshadowing, Gen, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, No Incest, Not Beta Read, Not Luther friendly, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Allison Hargreeves, Protective Diego Hargreeves, Protective Number Five | The Boy, Protective Older Brothers, Rating change because of language and future content, Soft Diego Hargreeves, Some comic book elements, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27139201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VirusError/pseuds/VirusError
Summary: The Hargreeeves successfully dodge the 2nd apocalypse and began to move on with their lives as siblings once again. The only thing is their missing Number 6, what happens when Five jumps back in time and tries to save their brother.Does he do it?OrDoes he mess up the time line even more?
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves/Eudora Patch, Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: The End To The Begining The Begining To The End [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024918
Comments: 12
Kudos: 118





	1. The Walls That Once Held Us All Tight We're About To Let Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from - To let go by Cozy 
> 
> Yay The first chapter of the first part of this series is officially up hope you guys enjoy.
> 
> Edit Oct 25 - I just realized I uploaded the unedited version 😅 , So the correct version is up, it didn't change much if you don't feel like re reading it, I just fixed the Grammer and added more dialogue....Rookie mistake Sorry!!

Five (POV)

"Noooooooo!" The seance whined talking to the empty space in front of him.

Klaus crossed his arms, spun on his heels dramatically and walked away From whoever was in front of him

"Go haunt Diego for a while won't cha' or even little Fivey." 

Klaus threw his hands up in frustration before slamming his hands over his ears.

"LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" 

Five stood in the doorway with Diego, the older had just taken him to a nearby coffee house.They both stayed where they were at and continued to stare at their eccentric brother.

They both glanced towards Klaus as he ran up the stairs with his hands over his ears.

"Is he sober?" Five asked, finding that the reason for the Ghosts bothering Klaus.

Diego locked the door behind them, "I'm not entirely sure."

"LALALALALA I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU BENJAMIN" 

'Oh'

'Ben'

Klaus came running back down the staircase still yelling at the top of his lungs.

Allison Appeared at the top of the staircase having just come out of her room."Klaus it's 5 in the morning what are you doing."

"Ben won't leave me alone," Klaus crossed his arms again as he plopped himself on the couch and pouted.

All the awake siblings started to walk towards the couch where he was sitting.

Out of nowhere one of the throw pillows on the couch flew at the empty space beside Klaus.

Diego jumped back,"geezes Klaus a little warning when you randomly decide to move things with your mind." 

Five blinked over to one of the bar stools and continued sipping his coffee ignoring his ruckus of a family.

"BEEEENNNNNAAA,"He heard Klaus whine again and promptly flopped onto his back on the couch.

Diego chuckled at the sight of his ghost brother bothering Klaus,"Hey,Ben ease up on our brother a bit."He said, looking to where Klaus had thrown the pillow.

"Ben says hi and that he won't because HE'S A JERK and because I won't let him see you guys, even though he sees you guys all the time" 

Diego looked towards the empty space again,"Hey Ben and what do you mean you won't let him see us" 

Klaus huffed,"He wants to possess me again like when we were back in the 60's so he can actually interact with you guys."

"Ben can possess Klaus?" They all turned towards the staircase where Vanya was coming down to the foyer obviously woken up by all the noise made by the siblings.

"Well that explains what happened when we met dad for dinner,"Allison muttered under breath.

"UGH" Klaus cried out and threw his hands back over his ears and pulled his knees to his chest.

"EXACTLY and that's why I won't let him do it." 

"Also Five why were you and Diego out at 5 in the morning?''Klaus questioned the youngest.

Five shrugged,"I wanted a decent cup of coffee and Diego's a pushover" 

Diego glared at Five,"I am not a pushover."

Klaus chirped in,"You kinda are Di."

Diego redirected his glare at Klaus. 

Vanya walked in the middle of everyone,"are we just gonna ignore Ben possessing Klaus over Five's coffee addiction and Diego being a pushover." 

A bunch of string of voices all answered Vanya at once 

"I'm not a pushover!"

"Not an addiction, I just want a decent cup of coffee."

"I know isn't Benny so Cruel Vanny."

Vanya looked over at Allison with a look that said please help.

Allison walked to the middle where Vanya was.

"I heard a rumor......." All the brothers pipped up on hearing those first words come out of Allison's mouth.

There was nothing but silence in the room for a couple of seconds before Klaus spoke.

"If only that worked on ghosts,"Klaus muttered under his breath.

Allison turned to Klaus,"Okay hon explain why you're arguing with Ben again." She said, obviously confused about what her brother was going on about so early in the morning.

Klaus turned and stuck out his tongue at who they presumed to be Ben,"One I won't let him possess me and two I'm still not able to channel him even though I've been doing training with little Fivey."

"Not little," Five chirped in downing the last of his coffee before setting the empty cup on the bar counter.

When they had returned to the present Five had insisted on training Klaus and Vanya on how to better control their powers. Vanya because she never got any training as kids like they all did and Klaus because he really had a lot more powers and more capability then they all knew.

Making ghosts, well mostly Ben corporeal was something Klaus was struggling with and Five was having a hard time trying to make it easier for him.

"Hey it's not your fault you're still trying to work your powers." Diego leaned over the couch and ruffled Klaus' hair, careful of any more flying objects.

"Even Five keeps saying how hard you're working." Five's head snapped up the mention of his name and glared at Diego.

Klaus perked up,"Really!" 

He looked over at Five like a little kid looking for validation.

Five rolled his eyes and hopped off the bar stool,"Whatever." Five affirmed his validation in Klaus by saying this as the other three siblings smiled at Five.

Five rolled his eyes at his siblings once again before walking off upstairs,"This family is so dysfunctional." 

Five blinked the rest of the way to his room and sat on his bed to begin to work in his notebook.

He took a glance at his clock 

5:15 am

Five heard shuffling outside and realized it was the rest of his siblings returning to their bedrooms to get more sleep.

Five started to think about what Klaus said Ben had said and the irony in it.

He wants to see us 

Five chuckled to himself he hasn't seen Ben in 45 years he wished he could see his brother.

Five stared at a picture he had framed on his bed side table of all 7 of them lined up in their Academy uniforms and in number order.

Grace had taken that picture back when they were kids and never showed Reginald.

Five had found it when going through some old stuff and found a Frame to put it in. Five thought about a bunch of old memories that he didn't realize how much he valued.

When Klaus tripped down the stairs wearing mom's heels and had to have his jaw wired shut. They all appreciated the quietness but soon missed the random remarks from their loud brother.

They all always ran to Diego for comfort because he was the most caring. Five thought about the couple of nights where he would slip into the vigilante's bed, who would never speak a word just pull Five closer.

Every so often Diego was in Klaus' room after the Seance's training sessions hugging his little brother and letting him know the ghost couldn't get through Diego.

And there was sweet innocent Vanya, the one everyone always left out aside from Diego who was the only one who ever treated her like family.

And then Ben 

He was always the nicest and most innocent like Vanya, Even though Reginald tried to corrupt him.

The horror 

That name for such a sweet person 

Five heard a door slam and it snapped him out of his daze, Five then realized his cheek was wet.

Five brought his fingers to his cheek and pulled them back seeing the wetness on his fingertips.

He roughly wiped the tears away with his blazer sleeve and turned towards his clock 

6:00 am 

Fuck,how long was he dazing off?

Five cursed at himself before gathering his notebook and pencil shoving it in his trousers pocket.

Five walked outside his room and shut his door, he was about to blink downstairs until he heard someone talking to themselves

He walked down the first flight of stairs to the others' bedrooms and followed the sound till he realized it was coming from Klaus' room. Five peeked in Klaus' room through the small crack that he had his door open.

He saw Klaus sat on his bed trying to use his powers, but each time his fist lit up it would quickly go away.

Klaus' hands dropped onto his lap and he laid down on his bed, curling in on himself.

"I'm sorry Ben," Five could hear Klaus mutter into his sheets. Five could hear Ben telling Klaus that it was fine even though he wasn't there. Ben always had a soft spot for Klaus.

"No, it's not your own brother who can see the dead can't even make it where our siblings can see you." Klaus' voice quavered towards the end of his sentence.

Five really wished he knew what Ben was entirely saying instead it was like a mad lib, inserting random words into the spaces based on what Klaus was responding to.

Five lightly knocked on Klaus' door, letting it slightly open

"You okay?" 

Klaus sat up criss-crossed on his bed, and rubbed his tears away before letting his signature smile fall upon his face.

"Baby bro Número Cinco"

Five looked him up and down, Klaus looked broken but still managed to have his normal personality.

"Is Ben here?"

Klaus looked in front of him on his bed where he was sitting and grabbed something from that spot.

".....yeah" 

Klaus slipped what he grabbed, which were his dog tags back over his neck, slightly rubbing the engraving of it.

Five walked over to Klaus' window, dodging a Ouija board and black boxers thrown on the floor and leaned against the seal. Ben's statue was in perfect view from Klaus' room.

There was a couple seconds of silence before Five spoke.

"You shouldn't take any responsibility for his death,... Klaus." When Five returned he quickly learned that they all blamed Luther for Ben's death even though no one ever told him.

They all refused to tell Five the full details of what happened but gave him the overall picture. Five also found out from the others that Klaus beat himself up over them losing Ben.

It was quiet in the room, Five looked towards Klaus and saw his shoulders had sunk down more than they already were.

"It's fine....you know, about us not being able to see Ben." Five felt the words pierce him like Diego's knives, it definitely wasn't fine.

Klaus looked up at Five,"you guys would be able to if I could just work these stupid powers correctly." 

Five knew this was more than Klaus staying sober and being able to use his powers to their full extent. This was about having their brother back.

He walked over dodging all the random scattered items of his brother's floor and sat down on the edge of Klaus' bed, opposite where the other was sitting.

"We can do an extra training session today after breakfast." Five said, hoping he wouldn't regret his decision to do this.

"Only if you want too though," Five stared at his hands as he fidgeted with them.

'Why was he nervous?'

"Really?!" Klaus turned his head and asked his younger brother in surprise.

Five never liked to do Klaus and Vanya's training till after lunch and only did one per day because of what had happened a week or so back.

When they had started out it was twice a day and longer sessions. Klaus was learning to levitate better and already had it down and pat. Five had challenged Klaus to try to go higher than what he was used to. They were doing this outside in the courtyard so that meant no padding if Klaus were to fall.

Five kept urging Klaus to keep trying until Klaus was able to get up a decent height. Five was pushing Klaus too much without noticing, till the Seance promptly collapsed in front of him, falling all the way to the ground.

Five grimaced at the memory remembering his brother hit the ground and the panic of both him and Vanya. Being they were the only ones home with Klaus(and Ben).

Five inhaled and exhaled before answering his brother,"Yes Klaus just make sure to tell me if-"

Five's sentence was cut off by Klaus jumping on him and hugging him to death.

"You're the best baby brother!!"

Five pushed his hands on Klaus' chest attempting to push his lengthy brother off him.

"I'm NOT a baby and get off me right now before I break all your fairy-lights." 

Five knew Klaus would react to that more than his normal empty threats of decapitating or making Diego use him as target practice, which Diego would never do no matter how much a push over he was.

Klaus pulled away from Five with a gasp.

"You wouldn't"

Five grinned at his brother," you know me Klaus,I would." 

Klaus looked at his fairy lights surrounding his bed then back at Five.

"I'll just make Diego buy me more"

'Crap' 

Klaus jumped Five again, this time Five blinked onto the other end of Klaus' bed.

Klaus fell face first onto his bed, "...so mean" Klaus mumbled into his bed sheets.

Five scoffed and stood up before heading towards the doorway.

"Come on the others are probably already down at breakfast and I bet Diego made your waffles for you." 

"Diego's waffles, Ben come on!"

Klaus tumbled out of his bed and ran past Five as he almost slid down the staircase. Five shook his head and blinked to the entryway of the kitchen, sitting down in his usual spot across from Allison.

Klaus followed in after Five a couple seconds later, and sat down across from Vanya.

They were all in their pyjamas still aside from Diego and himself who had left earlier that morning, so we're in regular clothes. Diego had changed from what they went to the coffee house in, to his work clothes.

Diego put a plate in front of Five and Klaus while passing the coffee pot and a mug to Five, and poured Klaus a glass of Orange juice.

Five's plate contained his favorite peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich, along with some fruit Diego put on the side.

Diego went over to Him, and Klaus and ruffled their hair,"I'm leaving, don't do anything stupid you two." Five swatted his hand away while Klaus let Diego ruffle his hair.

"Vanya lets go I'll give you a ride to rehearsal" Vanya smiled at Diego and ran up the stairs to get changed and grab her violin.

Diego grabbed his keys off the table,"Define stupid Diego." Klaus said, while drowning his last waffle in syrup.

Diego glanced at Klaus," You know what I mean Klaus," Five scoffed. Diego nudged him," Hey you too, no going back to World War 1 or some shit."

Five turned around with his mug in hand,"What about World War II then?" Five replied with his usual smug smile.

Vanya came down the stairs with a sweater on and Violin in hand, she walked over to Diego and stood behind him.

"Five!" Diego growled out at the small time traveler. Allison got in the middle of them slightly laughing, " No no not now you two." 

She turned to Diego," You get Vanya to rehearsal or she's gonna be late and go to work." She turned around towards Five," And you finish your breakfast." 

Five turned back around with a roll of his eyes, while him and Diego muttered under their breath.

A hand reached over his head and snatched a grape of his plate. Five quickly turned back around, " Hey!" 

Diego plopped it in his mouth and started walking towards the front door with Vanya right behind him.

"Whatever," Five turned back around once again, towards his food and took a bite out of his sandwich. The front door opened then closed as the two left the house.

"Soooo Fivey when do we start," Klaus said, as he stuffed the last of his waffle in his mouth.

Five sighed why did he think this was a good idea?

Five ate the last piece of his sandwich and downed his 2nd cup of coffee that morning.

"Let's go" 

They both walked out back to the courtyard while Allison and Luther were too busy talking to notice them leaving.

Five stood in front of Klaus facing the Academy." Remember to tell me if it gets too much for you or you need a break," Klaus saluted his little brother.

"Eye yie baby bro Cinco" 

Five rolled his eyes," NOT the baby and come on let's get started" 

They started off with what Klaus could do and was comfortable with then moved into the harder stuff.

Channeling the dead and his telekinesis was what they were working on.

"I bet you can move more bigger stuff than pillows and small items,"Five said as he picked up the tennis ball again and threw it towards Klaus.

It stopped midair and then returned back to Five.

Five caught the ball and rummaged through some other items he brought outside.He glanced at the tree nearby and had an idea.

Five went over to the tree and started to climb it.

"Hey Fivey climbing trees is fun and all but I don't think now's the right time" 

Five made it up to one of the highest, thicker branches that would hold him and sat on it."I'm not climbing for fun Klaus,move me from up here back down to the floor." 

Klaus' eyes widened,"Wait a tick, wait a tick Five what if I drop you I'm never gonna hear the end of it from Diego and Allison." 

Five talked a little louder considering how high he was up in the tree."Come on Klaus if you do I can just blink to the ground, It's not like I would put myself in harm's way for the sake of your training." 

Klaus still didn't look convinced and looked terrified that he could possibly hurt Five.

Five sighed and stood up on the branch."It's fine Klaus we can continue to practice with small inanimate obje-" 

Snap! 

Five felt the branch snap under his feet as he began to fall.

'Crap!'

"Five!"

Other branches on the way down snagged at his uniform and hair.

Five shut his eyes and was about to blink to the ground when suddenly he stopped falling. Five opened his eyes and looked at Klaus as he continued to go down slowly the rest of the way and his feet softly touched the floor.

Five straightened his uniform then looked back to Klaus as the Seance slid to the ground with just his arms supporting him and his HELLO hand grabbing at his chest.

'FuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuck!'

'Of course he would push Klaus to hard!!FUCK why didn't he stop and listen to Klaus'

"Klaus!"Five yelled while running over to his brother as fast as he could.Five bent down when he got to Klaus and put a hand on his back."Klaus,are you okay!"Five said, a bit more worried and frantic than he would have liked.

Klaus turned towards Five

"Am I Okay!?" Klaus ran his hand over his face and through his hair."Fuck Five you almost gave me a heart attack" 

Five released a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

'Klaus is okay'

"What are you two doing!"Allison yelled, as she ran over to them, looking down at them both on the floor.

Five and Klaus both looked at each other then looked up at Allison.

"Training,"Five responded to her.

Allison sighed,"And training involves Five falling out of a tree?" 

Five knew he probably looked like a wreck and all disheveled. 

Klaus shrugged his shoulders"Possibly?"

Allison bent down and grabbed him and Klaus by their upper arms,hauling them to their feet.

She put a hand on both their backs and began pushing them inside."Well training is going to have to continue inside today." 

Five honestly felt like his age right now getting scolded by Allison.

"Awww come on Alli we were just getting to the fun part"Klaus whined to their older sister as she opened the door and pushed them both inside.

"Nope"she shut the door behind them and locked it back up.

"But Mom"Klaus teased her for how she was treating them.

Five snickered at Klaus messing with Allison which he tried to hide.

Allison smiled, rolled her eyes and started walking up the staircase.

"I'm telling Diego about this" She said knowing Their older brother would be on her side.

"Well we're never gonna hear the end of it,"Five rolled his eyes at how protective numbers 2 and 3 were.

"Hey Fivey wanna jump a couple minutes ago so we don't have to hear it from Diego later on?" Klaus asked, Five as a joke dropping himself on the couch and laying down.

"As convincing as that idea sounds No thank you."Five went and sat on the other couch.

"Pretty cool to think if you don't like something that happens you can just go poof!,turn back time and re-do it."  
Klaus sat up and started poking his finger at an empty space.

Five questioned it for a second before realising Ben was probably in front of him so he was pointing his finger at Ben?.......In Ben?.......towards Ben?.......He didn't really know how the whole ghost thing works nor did he want to.

Five responded to Klaus"Well when you don't necessarily know how time traveling works you can't guarantee things will go well." 

Five walked over to the center of the room and looked at the Image of him that was still hung up.

'Someone should really take that down'

"But still you can go back to when we were 8,13,17 and relive it all again"Five looked back at Klaus who was now playing patty cake with (again) who he presumed was Ben.

'Relive it all again'

Five never got to see the rest of their childhood past the day he left.

And his jumps were getting much better 

He was able to make the jump with smaller increments when they all had gotten hurt by Lila and The Handler and saved his siblings.

'Save his siblings'

'That's it!'

Five spun around and started running up the stairs to his room.

"Klaus,that's it, you're a genius!" 

Klaus looked at Five before shrugging his shoulders and returning to his game with Ben.

Five fumbled up the stairs and ran into his room and began pulling all his notebooks out, the ones he hadn't used in about 4 weeks since they got back from the 60's.

He laid them out,grabbed the chalk on his desk and climbed up on his bed to find a space to write on his walls.

'Save his siblings'

'He could save Ben'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys Enjoy how long the chapter are, I usually only write about 1000 words but here we have over 3500 words for this chapter.........I give mad props to all the people who write like 10k per chapter Respect for those people.
> 
> ~~~~~~~VirusError🌸


	2. You Should've Raised A Baby Girl, I Could Have Been A Better Son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Mama By My Chemical Romance 
> 
> Also I forgot to mention This is like a mashup up of the Comic books and the TV show adaptation ( because I love the comic books too much) So little things from the comic books will be in here.
> 
> Like one thing you guy's already saw was Klaus' powers which are only specific to the comic book.
> 
> Anyways I'm rambling, Enjoy!!

Five(POV)

Five frantically started writing out all the formulas he needed to go back a couple years and to a specific date.By a couple years He meant 13, back to when his siblings were 16.

Five looked through the old newspapers from the library where their father had kept every newspaper with them in the headlines.

He went through them by year till he found all the ones under 2006. Five took a deep breath before flipping through the individual papers.

He landed on the one that he needed,the one with the headline reading.

The Horrors death

Five grabbed the paper and blinked back towards his room and scribbled the date down on his wall.

He kept at it till the sun started to set in the sky. Five didn't notice the day whizzing by nor did he care.

Knock!

Knock!

"Yoo hoo Fivey Dinner is ready" 

'Dinner?'

'Didn't they just eat breakfast?' 

'What happened to lunch?'

Five glanced back at his clock that read 6:35 pm.

'Oh'

"Tell Diego I'll be down there in a minute Klaus,"Five yelled through his door.

"You know Di is gonna murder me if you don't come down for Dinner, Baby Cinco ."Klaus said to Five still with his door closed.

Five starred at his wall, he had most of the equation worked out but one thing he didn't know was the details of Ben's death. What people were around? Who were they fighting? What was so important about this mission they had to go?

Only the remaining other 5 siblings knew and Five knew he had to ask them and soon or else finding the right equation wouldn't mean anything.

Five huffed and got down off of his bed and opened his door with Klaus who was leaning on it tumbled into his room.

"AGAIN not a Baby" 

Five was about to blink downstairs then realized he should start saving his energy if he's gonna make a big jump.

Instead Five walked past Klaus, down the staircase to the dining room.

"Wow you actually walked down here for once,"Diego commented while placing a plate in front of him.

Klaus followed shortly after Five and plopped down in his chair," See told you he didn't die Allison." 

Five looked over at Allison with a questioning look.

"I knocked on your door for lunch and you never responded,and I did NOT think he died Klaus" Allison said to Five then redirected her glance over to Klaus who sunk down in his chair.

"You acted like it," Klaus muttered.

They both continued to argue with each other while Vanya just laughed at the two.

Five rolled his eyes and continued eating his food.

"Where did you get these scratches from Five?" Diego ran his thumb over a small spot on Five's cheek.

He also grabbed Fives hand that was laying in his lap and turned it over where his palm was scratched slightly.

Five looked at his other Hand which had the same small, light scratches and caught sight of his knees which also were the same.

'Shoot'

'The tree'

In that quick second that Five began to fall he must have scratched himself on the other branches on the way down before Klaus was able to stop him from falling.

"....uhhh,"He looked over at Klaus whom he and Allison had stopped arguing ,over hearing his and Diego's conversation. Klaus turned his head and looked the other way.

'Traitor!'

Allison cleared her throat,"Five fell out of a tree this morning" 

'Annnnd there it was' 

Diego turned back to him,"A tree?" 

Allison laughed at Diego's reaction,"Ask Klaus he knows." 

They all looked towards where Klaus had been sitting and found him at the farthest end of the table.

"What me? I'm just, Number 4, you know the one who doesn't know anything." 

Five glared at Klaus,He was not gonna be the one to take all the blame for this.

Five picked up his fork and stabbed what was on his plate,"Klaus was the one who dropped me from the tree." He said, bringing what he had on his fork to his mouth.

Everyone looked at Five then back towards Klaus,"Klaus!" They all said to The Seánce.

"What but that's-.....uh…..Fivvvvveeeee"Klaus whined, for both him and Klaus knew what he said was a lie.

"I said don't do anything stupid and you go and drop our brother out of a tree Klaus." Diego started to scold Number 4.

Five took a sip of his water and glanced at Klaus pouting while Diego was lecturing him.

For the first time since he left them when they were 13, Five started to laugh at his siblings, bringing a serviette to his mouth so he wouldn't spit out his water.

They all looked back towards Five

Klaus stood up from his chair,"See he's lying!"He said, trying to make a point to his siblings, His hands spastically making gestures towards the younger.

Five laughed more at Klaus' outburst which made his siblings smile at seeing him laugh.

They all dropped the topic of Five falling out of the tree( still not sure who did what ) and continued to chat while they all ate their dinner.

Five remained quiet for the rest of the time,listening to Vanya about her rehearsal and how she had a solo recital coming up, Allison about an upcoming shoot she had, and Diego and the new case he was assigned to.

Till he remembered

He has to know the details of Ben's death

Five waited till everyone was done and cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.

"I wanted to ask you guys something,"Everyone looked towards Five with questioning looks while he looked down at his plate and shuffled a piece of food around it.

Everything stopped what they were doing as they saw the look on Five's face. Allison dropped her conversation with Luther, Diego leaned against the counter as he stopped clearing the dishes, Vanya's smile fell,and Klaus stopped messing around and bothering Diego.

Five felt everyone's eyes drilled into him but, They all stayed silent and let Five talk, not interrupting him.

"....…I-I want to know the full story" 

Five grimaced at himself 'why did he stutter?' 

Five took a deep breath

'here goes nothing' 

"Of what happened the day Ben died" 

"............."

Five felt like the silence between his siblings lasted years till one of them spoke up.

Allison stood up and started helping Diego clear the dishes,"We told you what happened Five and you also read what happened from Vanya's book."

Her voice was calm, not sincere, not sad, not angry, just…..calm 

"But not everything," Five heard his voice get louder, he was always the only sibling that didn't know what completely happened to Ben.

"Five," It was Vanya with her soft nice voice who said his name.

She looked like she wanted to cry at the mention of their deceased brother.

He looked up from his plate and at the rest of his siblings all wearing different expressions.

Klaus' much like Vanya's, Diego and Allison looked calm and collected, while Luther looked like he wanted to punch the latter.

"Bud, you've asked us all on separate occasions about that day and we've told you all we can" 

'bud' they all have been calling him that since he returned and Five didn't mind the nickname from his siblings, but right now it frustrated him.

"Can tell me or Want to tell me?" Five snapped at Diego.

Diego still remained calm and Five dropped his head again, he instantly regretted what he did.

Klaus opened his mouth to talk but was quickly interrupted by Luther.

"It's none of your business Five,"Luther told Five, more angrier than the others had been talking to him.

'None of his business?!' 

Five snapped his head in Luther's direction,"was I talking to you Number One?" He had both hands placed firmly on the table, and His words had his normal attitude and bite to them.

"You did address everyone Number Five," Him and Luther were obviously getting heated with each other much like how Diego and Luther got.

Five stood up from his chair at this moment and so did Luther.

"Stop it Luther," It was Allison, her tone serious,with Diego still leaning on the counter behind her glaring at Luther.

Five had been biting his tongue the whole time when he couldn't take it anymore.

"Maybe I was addressing everyone who isn't to blame for Ben's death," Five knew it was a low blow, and didn't know if anyone had ever known if Five knew who they all blamed.

Vanya sat up from her chair and quickly walked out of the kitchen. Allison quickly followed behind, chasing after Vanya.She turned around before exiting the kitchen.

"You just had to ruin dinner didn't you?" Five didn't know if her words were directed towards him or at Luther,but either way...they hurt.

Luther went after Allison, and that left the 3 other brothers alone in the kitchen.

Five sat back down in his seat and swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat, staring at his hands that he was wringing together.

After a couple of seconds they heard the two sisters arguing and the front door being open then slam shut.

Five winced because he knew him bringing up the topic would have caused all this, yet he still opened his mouth.

One of the wooden chairs creaked as Klaus stood up, more slowly and calmly than the others who had already left the room.

He walked over to Five and laid a hand on his shoulder.

" I'm sorry Five"

Five didn't realize how much he would miss the stupid nicknames from Klaus till he didn't hear them.

'Why was Klaus apologizing'?

Five wanted to tell Klaus he's sorry and not to apologize, but he didn't dare open his mouth...not right now.

Five felt Klaus' hand fall off his shoulder and then the latter exited the kitchen, they could hear Klaus' bare feet against the tile as his footsteps got more and more distant.

Diego was the only one left alone with Five in the kitchen. He's still leaned against the counter which so happens to be in front of where Five is sitting.

"F-five," He hears Diego take a deep breath and runs his hand over his face.

Five wanted to mentally and physically smack himself, He hasn't heard Diego stutter in a while, the last time was when they were back in the 60's. He knows it only happens when he's upset nowadays.

Diego stayed quiet not saying anything to him. Five hated it, he hated the silence especially from Diego. 

As much as Five liked to joke around about Diego being a pushover, Diego was just a protective big brother to them all. Making sure Vanya got to and from every rehearsal safely, helping Klaus through every withdrawal and nightmare, and carting around Five at whatever hours of the night to make sure he wasn't out alone or always making him tell Diego where he was so he didn't have a heart attack.

Diego was a constant in all their life's and kept them all in one piece.

Five looked up at Diego who had an expression he couldn't even describe.

"Di…?"

Five hardly if ever used their childhood nicknames for his siblings,unlike Klaus who always had a new nickname for every single one of the siblings, every day of the week.

Diego got off the counter and walked over to where Five was still sitting. He bent down in front of the younger and put his hand on Five's cheek, softly stroking it with his thumb.

Five slightly flinched at the contact he didn't indicate.

" What's wrong Five?" 

Five wanted to tell him everything, He wanted to tell him how much he missed Ben, He wanted to break down and let Diego hug him, He wanted to feel warmth from another person's touch.

He wanted to accept the comfort.

But not right now 

Five opened his mouth but never said anything and instead closed it and let his head drop down from his brother's gaze.

He felt Diego's hands fall to his Knees and rub circles as his older brother began to talk.

" Why don't you go upstairs and get some rest then we can all talk tomorrow." Five almost felt like this was a punishment of some kind, for him to wallow in every wrong in how he's treated his siblings, that has occured within the past few minutes.

Five nodded his head, still not daring to talk and began walking out of the kitchen towards his room.

Five was passing by the others rooms,when Klaus came out of his with his fur coat and leather boots on. Five knew he was gonna go out to score some type of drug, he had been clean nearly 2 weeks Five really didn't want him to ruin that. He watched as Klaus ran down the stairs and headed towards the front door.

'Why didn't he stop him? ' 

Five quickly turned away and walked as fast as he could till he hit his room. He shut his door behind him, palms flat on the wood as he took a deep breath. He put his back on the door before sliding down to the floor, hands tugging at his brown locks.

Five sighed, Dinner was a disaster. They had all finally been getting along and he had to just go ruin it all. Five let his head fall back against the door and thought about everything that just happened.

Fuck!

He knew Ben's death was hard to talk about for everybody, much less in detail about everything that happened that day.

He glanced around his room looking at all the things he never got rid of since his ACTUAL 13 year old self owned this room. The toys piled up on top of his dresser in a wooden toy box, the toy tractor on his window seal, his baby blue walls, and his light blue fluffy blanket that had designs on it still laid at the foot of his bed.

He glanced back at his wall where the info oshed equation was scrawled down. If he is just able to get Ben back, maybe everything will be better.

Five pushed himself off the floor and grabbed the almost finished stick of chalk and jumped back on top of his bed.He slightly bounced and almost lost his balance.

'no wonder Klaus was always jumping on his bed as a kid'

Five shook his head, Not the time. He needed to focus on what he was doing.

He would just have to figure this out by himself, like when he was in the apocalypse.Five was gonna keep at it till he got the right equation.

Some time passed and He stopped for a minute as he heard arguing downstairs between who knows. Someone's footsteps followed as the argument stopped, they grew louder with each step.

There was a light knock on his door as he was trying to figure out the last two numbers to his equation.

"Five, are you still up It's pretty late." It was Allison, she probably had been the one arguing with one of his brother's downstairs.

He looked at his clock 

11:31 pm

He had been losing track of time all day working on this. He marked the number he got down, One more to go.

" Five?" 

He still felt like he couldn't talk to his siblings at this moment. He scrambled down to his knees on the bed and reached over to switch his lamp off.

It took a couple of seconds till he could hear her slowly walking away from his room.

Five waited till the footsteps got farther and farther, till he could no longer hear them.

He switched back on his lamp so he could see what he was writing. He stood back up and marked the last number down then looked over the entire equation.

'something didn't seem right?'

Knock!

Knock!

"Five, honey it's way past your bedtime," Ugh Mom.

Five jumped off his bed and opened his door a crack so he could peek out. He looked around and made sure none of his siblings were around before talking to Grace.

"Sorry Mom, just wrapping something up I'll be in bed by midnight." He gave her a half smile hoping she would believe him.

She smiled back at him," alright dear just make sure to change out of your uniform to your pyjamas."

She still treated them all like her children even after all these years. Five nodded his head and softly closed his door back up.

He grabbed his notebook and wrote down the equation before shoving it in his pocket.

This was gonna have to do 

Five went over and locked his door knowing it would buy him more time in the morning before his siblings realized he was gone.

Five slipped on his shoes, grabbed his blazer that was hanging on the end of his bed and shrugged it on.

He wished Dolores was with him right now.

He stood up in the middle of his room and his fist began to glow.

Here. Goes. Nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Serviette* - a paper napkin ( sorry for my weird vocabulary) 
> 
> ~~~~~~VirusError🌸


	3. Hush Child, The Darkness Will Rise From The Deep And Carry You Down Into Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Mordred's Lullaby by Heather Dale 
> 
> ( a lot of these song lyrics that I use for all the chapters I've put the songs into a playlist labeled Umbrella Academy just because of how much they remind me of the show or all the siblings in some way, and if you have any to recommend please leave them in the comments😁)
> 
> Small spoilers for the newest issue of "You Look Like Death"
> 
> It's hardly a spoiler but I mention something that is shown or talked about very briefly in the comic.
> 
> So if you're into the comics I suggest read issue #2 You Look Like Death before reading this chapter, and if you don't follow the comics Everything will be explained in the chapter 😊
> 
> Also, I finally wrote out the complete prompt for this story so there may or may not be faster updates now that I know what the heck I'm writing.

Five (POV) 

Five tried to land on his feet, but wherever he was proved that to be difficult. A blue flash appeared and quickly disappeared as Five fell on his bottom, in the middle of a pond.

'Great' 

He got up and trudged through the water over towards a nearby ledge, avoiding any fish, and climbed up on it. Five's bangs stuck to his forehead and His uniform clung to his body.

If only Dolores could see him now, he would have received some sarcastic comments on how this could have been prevented if he'd just waited.

He stood up and pulled a Lily pad off him that was stuck to his shorts and pulled his socks back up from where they had fallen down due to the weight of the water.

He slid off his blazer and vest before attempting to wring as much water out of both pieces of clothing. He straightened out his button-up and tie, then slid the checkered vest back over his head.

Five gave a second thought to putting his blazer back on given it had the emblem of the academy on the left-hand side. He threw it over his arm and just opted to carry it, hoping no one recognized the colors of his vest as well.

Five looked around the area, he had landed in some park( given the pond) and was near some lesser busy roads.

He definitely wasn't anywhere near the umbrella Academy, he at least hoped he landed in the same city.

It was bright wherever he was, obviously daytime unlike in the present. He crossed the street from where he was and walked over to a nearby corner store.

He was about to go in before realizing a soaked, 13-year-old boy, with what looked like a school uniform on looked a bit suspicious.

Five at this moment didn't even know if he was in the right year, date, country, city, anything. Five kept looking around at anything that would give him a clue of where he was at.

A younger woman walked out of the corner store carrying a newspaper in her hand along with an umbrella. Five knew he needed the date and where he was at, which the newspaper for sure had. The woman reminded him of Grace by the way she was dressed and her appearance.

Five hesitantly walked up to the woman, "Excuse me, Can I see that?" He pointed to the newspaper in her hand.

The woman looked down at Five then at the newspaper in her hand. Five guessed he probably looked like some teen who'd ran away from home.

She smiled and handed him the newspaper which he quickly skimmed through, seeing something about spinach killing people and other nonsense things that were happening in the world.

Five caught a glimpse of a picture of all his siblings lined up with the subheading reading, 'The Umbrella Academy saves multiple people from a break-in at a museum.'

'At least he knew he was in the right decade'

He continued to flip through the pages till he found what he was looking for.

He was in the right city, just another part of it. As for the date he was back in 2006 just 4 days a little too early.

" Dear, Do you need a ride home or need me to call someone for you?" The woman asked him.  
She looked concerned for Five when he realized he was still soaked, and still had the scratches from this morning when he had fallen out of the tree.

Five hadn't thought any of this out, he was gonna have to stay somewhere for the next 4 days or until he was gonna figure out his next move. He had only been thinking about saving Ben but didn't exactly know how to at this moment.

This wasn't the Apocalypse In the idea that he could go anywhere he wanted to and do what he wanted to without messing up the timeline in some way or form.

'Was he making the right choice?'

Five folded the newspaper back up before handing it back to the lady, "Uh thanks and no." Five started walking, he didn't know where exactly he was walking but he knew his destination was the academy.

Five kept walking till there were more buildings and people littering the walkways and streets. Everyone had sweaters and coats on, That's when Five realized he's been shivering this entire time.

It was definitely too cold outside to be summer when Five remembered it was during the fall when this all happened.

Five put his blazer back on, even though it was still soaked and risked him getting recognised by people who knew of the Umbrella Academy, it blocked the wind from hitting him.

He could feel the squishing of the water in his shoes every time he stepped down.

'Of all places a pond!?'

He knew he should have waited and perfected the equation before jumping to a time and place he didn't exist in at the moment.

But he never listened to anyone, not even Dolores even though she was usually right. Five never even listened to himself sometimes.

So here he was shivering, drenched in pond water, and with no exact plan of what to do.

Five considered hailing a taxi but knew they wouldn't let him in the vehicle with the way he was.

Five continued to walk for what felt like hours in the direction he hoped the Academy was in. He was never on this side of town as a kid, much less in the 8 days he had to stop the 1st Apocalypse.

The sun started to set, which meant any warmth he had was now gone. The wind gradually picked up as the temperature started to drop. Every gust of wind that hit him made his body rattle even more and his ribs ache.

He could feel the exhaustion starting to nic at him, and the fact that he couldn't stop himself from shivering was draining more of his energy.

Five ducked into an alleyway where the wind was blocked off from hitting him. He wrapped his arms around himself, hoping to conserve as much heat as he could. He didn't know how his clothes hadn't already dried from all the wind, they weren't soaked but they were still 100 percent wet.

Five looked up as all the street lights flickered on.

'At least he wasn't in the dark'

The glowing sign in the dark caught Five's attention as he peeked out from the alleyway.

Griddy's Doughnuts

Finally, somewhere he recognized.

He must have walked farther than he thought being as the bakery was close to the Academy. Five got out from the alleyway and walked over towards the bakery.

Five stopped at the front of the place and took off his blazer and vest. He wasn't risking anyone recognising him. Five threw his uniform over his shoulder and walked into the bakery. his leather shoes squeaking slightly against the slick floor as he walked over to one of the bar stools.

There were a couple of other guys in there also, but no one Five could recognise.

Five sat on the stool and laid his blazer and vest over his lap and leaned on the counter. He was still wet, cold, and shaking but not so much to be shivering as harshly as he was outside.

"Is there anything I can get for you young man?" An older woman, the owner, stood in front of him with a pen and notebook in hand.

Five now knew her as Agnes, the lady Hazel had fallen in love with and soon lost. Five knew she was a kind lady.

She looked up from the notebook and her smile fell at seeing the young boy much closer now, who was shaking and was obviously wet.

Five could see her expression and he didn't want any attention to be brought to him.

"Coffee, Black" He quickly answered her hoping she'd go away.

" Would you like something to eat? A doughnut, eclair, any pastry on the menu we can make for you." She sounded frazzled and almost insisted on Five eating something.

Five grumbled to himself in frustration 

'Curse this 13-year-old body, adults wouldn't just take him seriously or leave him be'

He probably should eat something, even though He technically just had dinner last night…….This morning? Whatever it was he had just eaten at least 8 or more hours ago.

Five glanced over at the menu and instantly saw what he wanted.

"Creme filled Doughnut, with chocolate, ....and sprinkles."

She smiled at him," Coming right up." 

'Did he really just order that?' 

'Darn sweet tooth!' 

Five slumped more down in his chair and put his arms down on the counter so he could lay his head down.

".......So there's 7 of them?" Five quickly turned his head towards the guys sitting at a nearby booth who had been talking.

'They couldn't have been talking about the Umbrella Academy right?' 

" Well yeah, but one disappeared almost 4 years ago, and another never fights so technically only 5 we need to worry about." 

'Worry about?' 

Five laid his head back down, as to not draw attention to himself from the two men.

"So how exactly are we going to take down a group of 5 superhero kids?"The taller of the two men put his hands on the other's shoulder."Don't worry, me and the other guys have got it all worked out, we've been planning for weeks. " 

Five shivered 

He didn't know if it was from how cold he was or the thought that his brother's death was planned weeks before it actually happened. Five heard a clink and jerked his head forwards.

"One black coffee, and one creme-filled chocolate doughnut with sprinkles. And don't worry it's on the house."

She smiled down at Five before going back to what she was doing before he had come in. The mug and a small plate with the sugary confectionary laid in front of Five.

The steam from the mug told Five it was fresh, He picked up the mug which quickly warmed his trembling, cold hands. Five looked down into the dark brown liquid and continued to hold onto the mug, hoping it would warm the rest of him too.

Five stayed looking down at his coffee for who knows how long until the ringing of the bell above the door brought his attention back into the present.

Five looked towards the booth and both guys were gone all that was left was a crumpled up dollar and some quarters left on the table. He turned around on his chair towards the entrance of the doughnut shop as the door finished swinging shut.

Crap! 

He could've followed them, they obviously knew what was gonna happen. Five turned back around and gritted his teeth before tilting the mug of coffee to his lips. He felt the warmth of the coffee warm him up temporarily till he took another sip.

Five quickly finished off his doughnut and coffee before getting up and exiting the doughnut shop.

'What were those two guys on about?'

Five walked in the direction of the Umbrella Academy, He wanted to jump but knew if he ran into any trouble he'd need the energy.

He put on his blazer and vest again for what seemed like the 10th time today. He was still wet and cold but not nearly to the point where he was dripping water like before.

Five continued to walk in the direction of the Academy till he reached the familiar black gates. Five didn't know exactly what he was doing here, he didn't want to wait around 4 days till they left, but he didn't exactly know anything his 16-year-old siblings were doing right now.

He looked down at his watch only to remember it was still set at present time, not 2006 time.

Whatever time it was it was dark out, Five guessed it was about 9 ish maybe later. His siblings were all probably asleep about now.

Including Ben 

If all this failed he could still go upstairs and see Ben right now, of course not talk to him or anything but just…..see him.

Five debated against himself on if he wanted to risk being seen in the house just to see Ben one last time.

Fuck it 

Five blinked into the foyer and quickly hid, he knew where all the surveillance cameras were placed. The house was completely dark, but Five knew this place like the back of his hand. He couldn't risk getting caught on one of the cameras much less by anyone in the house. 

Five walked along one of the walls and stayed there, that was where one of the blind spots were.

He could just blink into his room, but he was not confident in his jumping to land in the right place. Five made it by the kitchen when he heard footsteps.

Crap! 

Five ran into the kitchen and hid behind the lounging chair in the corner of the room. The footsteps got closer until someone walked into the kitchen. Five saw the bottom of their pyjamas and realized it must be one of his sister's, the two girls had gowns while all the boys wore a button-up shirt and pants. 

Five heard something clattering and peeked more around the chair. It was Vanya who was there, she had a butter knife, a peanut butter jar, a loaf of bread, a bag of marshmallows, and a plate in front of her.

Five knew HE was always the one to have all the items whenever they all made their individual sandwiches. 

But Vanya? 

Five could recall many times when they all grimaced at Five as he ate the sweet and sticky sandwich. He remembered Vanya always liking grilled cheese sandwiches.

Vanya finished making the sandwich and laid it back down on the plate before moving across the room turning on all the lights.

What was she doing? 

Five held his breath as she reached over the chair he was hiding behind and switched on the lamp. 

She picked up the plate and excited the kitchen into the main room. Five waited a couple of seconds before getting out from behind the chair and following his sister, hiding behind stuff along the way.

She put the plate down on the coffee table in the middle of the room before walking over to the picture of him that was hung up.

"Please come home Five," Vanya whispered while continuing to keep eye contact with the painting. She stayed there a couple of seconds before switching on all the lights in the living room.

Five crouched more behind the bookcase so she wouldn't see him. Vanya left the plate and went back up the stairs to her room. Five swallowed a lump he didn't realize formed in his throat.

Realization dawned on him that the sandwich Vanya had just made was for him, Five didn't know the reason for the lights but figured it was something she always did.

'They all waited for him to come home for 16 years, and this was all because he wanted to prove their father wrong out of teenage anger.

Then Ben goes and dies way too young which leaves the other 5 siblings mourning the loss of their two youngest brothers.

Five thinks back to these past few weeks since they've been back and no more Apocalypse. Diego's constant mother hen like attitude towards the 3 youngest siblings, and Allison treating them all like they're her kids. They're both just glad all the younger ones are safe and not almost dying anymore.

They were all Dead to Five for 45 years then he had them back for 8 days, Then they all died again only to be brought back AGAIN. Once that happened another time but this time bullets pierced holes in his sibling's bodies, Five didn't think he could handle another time. He has seen his siblings die one too many times and now he has the power to prevent it.

Five waited a couple of minutes before going up the stairs case, in the direction he knew Ben's room was. Five opted to go in through the door because the giant flash of blue might be a little too noticeable.

Five slowly turned the doorknob and peeked into Ben's childhood bedroom. 16-year-old Ben was laid out on his bed, cuddled up in his sheets in front of Five, he wanted to go over and hug him but he knew that would be the stupidest thing he could do.

Five took a few steps forward to try to get closer to Ben, Then there was a loud slam which came from the main part of the house. The sudden loud noise made Five jump as he looked back towards the noise then back over to Ben. Ben began to stir and started to rub at his eyes.

'Fuck!' 

Five hurriedly ran out of his room not bothering to close the door and blinked back to the foyer. He ducked behind the bookcase once again to hide from whoever had walked in the house.

He peeked over and saw Klaus and Reginald 

" I hope you learned your lesson Number 4," Reginald said to Klaus as he walked away from him back to his study, leaving Klaus in the middle of the room.

Five looks over Klaus, he's shaking with his arms wrapped around his petite frame, the Hem of his pyjama pants have mud on them, his fingernails are broken and bloody with his black nail polish mostly chipped off. Five looked at his brother's face and saw dried tear tracks along with new tears running down his face.

'The mausoleum'

Klaus stayed shaking and crying in the middle of the living room not minding the footsteps that could be heard coming down the staircase once again. Five looked towards the staircase and saw Diego slowly coming down the steps.

"K-Klaus?" Diego walked over to Klaus and softly put his hand on Klaus' upper arm. Klaus slowly lifted his hand and grabbed at Diego's sleeve.

" Come on let's get b-ba-back to bed," Diego's voice was soft and gentle, the same voice he used in the present-day that he only reserved for his siblings. He reached out and wrapped his arms around Klaus before coaching him slowly up the stairs.

Five felt a pang of guilt of how Klaus was always treated by their father, was never enough, always picked on for his choice of clothing and how he acted, was told not to be afraid of ghosts and the dark even though they haunted him every second of his life.

Five remembered when they were all very young Klaus had a cat that he named Oswald. One day he had gone missing and of course, Klaus was devastated, a couple of days later he returned from the graveyard with their father and told them Oswald was dead. 

Klaus had talked about how their father said he had gotten run over by the milkman which none of the siblings believed aside from Luther. It turned into an argument between Luther and the rest of the siblings on how much they should believe their father.

Klaus never told them what happened to him during his training seasons after that, but Five knew whatever it was nobody should have to endure what he went through.

Five shook the thoughts from his head as he waited till both pairs of footsteps could no longer be heard.

He jumped to the top floor where the hallway to his room and the attic connected, but also where the fire escape was. Five couldn't risk almost running into his siblings anymore. He opened the window and climbed out, carefully sliding it back closed.

He climbed down the ladder as he had once before to avoid his siblings. Five slid down the last few steps of the ladder and landed on his feet. He held onto the railing of the ladder for balance longer than he would have liked to.

He couldn't ignore the exhaustion that was slowly taking over him as he sucked in a deep breath of the crisp air. His body once again shook involuntarily as his breaths quavered. With each inhale his diaphragm ached more and more, digging into what little energy he had if any.

'He's endured way worse, he could take this.'

'Right?'

Five slumped against the brick wall, letting it support him and take all his weight. The jump had surprisingly taken a lot out of him and everything on top of his situation wasn't helping. 

Five eventually let himself fully sink to the floor near the trash cans behind the Academy. He tried to push himself up but his thin, scrawny, 13-year-old arms shook under him as they tried to bear any of his weight.

He let his head lull back against the red, brick wall as another gust of wind passed over him. Five wanted to get up and find the guys who were in Griddy's Doughnuts but his body was telling him otherwise.

Five curled in on himself where he was on the ground and let the calming exhausting of both yesterday and today envelop him. He tried to fight against his body's needs till his eyes fluttered closed and he let his body go limp, and slowly like a spell succumbed to the soothing darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention I spell "realised" like that and "pyjamas" like that if anyone is freaking out that I misspelled them the whole time, don't worry I didn't even realise their we're different ways to spell the words till autocorrect kept trying to correct me.
> 
> Stupid autocorrect 😑
> 
> Anyways hope you enjoyed!!!!
> 
> ~~~~~~~~VirusError🌸


	4. That's When You Stu-Stu-Stutter Something Profound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from " Nails for breakfast, Snacks for tacks" by Panic At The Disco.
> 
> This got super long I really got carried away XDXD 
> 
> This is in Diego's POV of pretty much what happened in the first 2 chapters so the Dinner scene dialogue is repeated but when Five was spaced out there wasn't dialogue so now you get to see the full dialogue 
> 
> Enjoy

Diego(POV) 

" Hey make sure to call me when rehearsals over so I can come pick you up," Diego called out to Vanya as she jumped out of the car and ran to the theatre.

"Got it!" Vanya yelled already at the doors of the place. Diego watched her go into the building safely before pulling away and driving in the direction of his work, which wasn't far from the theatre. 

Diego yawned, he had been woken up at 4 in the morning by Five getting ready trying to leave the house to get coffee. Diego obviously shot down Five's idea unless he was able to take him, Five had made a fuss about it but soon let Diego take him to the nearby coffee house.

Then when they got back home he was expecting to go back to a nice, quiet house and sleep. He should have learned by now that there is no such this with the Hargreeves. 

Klaus had woken up all the siblings, minus Luther, over some argument he was having with their ghost brother. Had he expected anything other from the Séance at 5 in the morning? No, Klaus is just…….Klaus. He had decided not to head back to sleep and instead started making breakfast for the bunch.

Diego pulled into the station, parked his car. Shortly after they returned, Diego pretty much had asked for his job back at the police station, which he ended up getting. This time around there was no Eudora now, he's been assigned a kid who had just graduated the academy. He was young but he fit in with the team, Diego remembered working with before he had left.

He continues to do his night stalks and is just more careful that he doesn't get caught by his team if they're called to the scene.

Diego opened the doors and was greeted by Albert, one of the newer guys on his team. He was a smart and quiet guy compared to most of the other people.

Diego walked over to his desk and looked at the new file that was left there and opened it.

" Hell of a new case huh ?" One of the girls commented, walking over handing Diego a cup of coffee. Diego gladly accepted the coffee and nodded his head at her comment on the case as he finished reading it.

A man has been seen spying on young children and trying to lure them to him, all the descriptions the kids have given is almost close to nothing aside from all of them calling him, "The Boogeyman."

They have had many cases over the past couple of weeks of children disappearing and have no lead or any trail of them, many people are saying it's like their vanishing out of thin air.

Diego had been suspecting that they were all tied into each other, till a letter had appeared at one of the parent's houses and she had brought it over to them.

It stated that the one writing the letter was the one responsible for all the crimes, he led onto explaining how he captured multiple children, tortured, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and finally ate them.

Once again they couldn't get any leads with the note, their guy who deciphered the letter suggested he wrote the letter with his non- dominant hand because of how it was written.

Diego didn't like the thought of this guy roaming the streets especially with the intent of him being after children. Diego hated these types of cases, especially because of how young Five is.

Diego downed the rest of his coffee he was just given and went over to pour himself another cup to keep himself awake.

" Woah there Hargreeves that's already your second cup in the last 5 minutes," The girl, Amy commented returning to her desk.

Diego yawned again and continued pouring his coffee. " Someone had a long night," Mitch, one of the other guys said.

" Correction early morning, 4 in the morning to be exact," Diego said to the group as he walked back over to his desk.

They all picked up their files and sat around Diego's desk, " What were you doing at 4 in the morning Hargreeves?" Nico, the last guy on the team asked.

" Younger Siblings, and that's all I'm saying," Diego didn't want to talk about his siblings in front of the team, he had predicted they all started kinda catching on once they saw the umbrella tattoo on his wrist by accident, but they never questioned him about it.

"Awwwww you have little siblings," Amy started gushing over the fact that this brute guy they worked with had little siblings.

"I bet he's a big softie with them," Mitch whispered to the others. Diego glared at him, "I will throw this pen at your forehead." 

Everyone quickly learned how good Diego's aim was on everything, whether it be shooting a gun, a game of darts, or throwing something at one of them.

"Back to the case!" Amy yelled before any of them got hit. They all returned back to the file and began discussing it in a more serious manner than what their conversation was about earlier.

Today was a short day, all he had to do was close up some old files and wait till they had leads on the newer one. " Hey you guys can head home me and Albert over here will finish up the last files," Mitch said to the rest of the team.

They all gave him a thumbs up and started cleaning up their desks, Diego glanced over at the clock.

4:32 pm

Vanya was gonna be out of rehearsal soon anyway, she's been staying late to work by herself on some solo she has coming up.

Diego looked over at the corner of his desk where he had a picture of Vanya, Klaus, Five, and apparently Ben was In the picture too based on what Klaus said.

They were all laid out on the couch watching a movie, Five and Vanya had fallen asleep on Klaus, so while Diego was covering the two with blankets Allison saw them and decided to take a picture of them. Klaus had drawn a little blue arrow over towards the back of the couch and said Ben was right there when Allison had taken the picture.

Five had seen the picture and wanted to tear it up, but Diego immediately brought it to work and put it in a frame.

As soon as Diego slipped his jacket on and grabbed his keys his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID that had Vanya's name on it, he stopped the green button and brought it to his ear.

" Hey, rehearsal finished?"

" Yeah just hanging out here with some other members till you come." 

Diego placed the picture back down before answering Vanya.

" I'll be there in a bit, remember no meeting any serial killers." Diego messed with Vanya over the phone.

" I won't, I won't, I promise." 

Diego laughed," Okay but be careful, I'll be right over there alright? Bye Vanya." 

She said a small Goodbye before Diego hung up the phone and placed it back in his pocket before looking back over at the picture in front of him.

Amy peeked around him and looked over towards the photo.

"So that's them?" She asked in a much quieter and softer voice so nobody would hear their conversation.

Diego smirk and nodded his head," 3 of them." Diego remembered not to count Ben. She turned back to him," how many including you?" 

He turned around and started walking towards the door with her," 7 in total, 5 boys and 2 girls." 

They both walked out to the parking lot," and you're the oldest?" She asked, her eyes wide.

They walked over to their cars which were parked near each other," Second oldest, but the eldest is a bit of an asshole to all of them." 

She laughed," Aren't they always." She waved her hand at him and smiled," Bye Hargreeves." 

Diego waved his hand bye to her and got in his car. Any conversations he has with her always remind him of Eudora, Diego looked down at his hands and remembered that day. 

They had found Five but then got a message from Eudora saying she found his brother. He quickly realized that in all the commotion they had completely forgotten about Klaus. As soon as he stepped in the door he had been hoping to find Klaus and Eudora, instead there was no trace of Klaus, and Eudora was dead.

Diego took a deep breath and turned on the car, with all two Apocalypse happening he never had time to even know what happened to Eudora or attend a funeral of any kind.

He pulled out of the parking lot and headed towards the Icarus Theatre to pick up Vanya. Diego pulled to a stop at the street across from the theatre, he pulled on his jacket, got out of the car, and walked into the theatre. 

Diego walked in and saw Vanya talking with some guy and girl, most likely other members from her orchestra. She looked around and saw Diego and waved at him. He waved back at her while she turned back around to who she was talking to. 

Both of the people leaned into Vanya and whispered something which made her start laughing. Vanya waved bye to them while she ran over to Diego still smiling.

"What's all the whispering about?" He asked Vanya as they walked over to his car. She laughed," They thought you were my boyfriend, but I told them you were my brother so they both proceeded to call you hot." 

Diego smiled at Vanya 

'Wait, Both of them?'

Vanya looked over at him and must have taken the hint from his expression," Don't worry I told Skylar you don't swing that way." 

Diego rolled his eyes, opened the passenger seat door, and waited for Vanya to climb in," Thanks Vanya," He said, sarcastically.

He shut the door and got into the driver's seat, " You can always tell them Klaus is available."

" Noooooo of all people, I think Klaus would be the last person I would recommend as a partner."

Diego put the car in drive and headed for the Academy, "I think you're right on that one Vanya." 

They continued to talk the rest of the drive, mostly Vanya kept picking on Diego that her friends called him hot. " You're not gonna take either of their offers, Diego," she said while nudging his arm with her elbow and a smile on her face.

He glanced over at her," Very funny Vanya." He turned the corner onto the Street the Academy was on."Awwwww come on Diego, I mean not Skylar's offer, but Melanie is a nice girl, she's our age, she plays the harp." 

Diego pulled into the Academy and turned the car off, he turned and gave Vanya "the look".She unbuckled her seat belt and swung open the car door while putting her hands up defensively," Okay Okay I get it." 

They both walked into the usually loud house and found it strangely quiet. 

'That's a first' 

"Diego look!" He and Vanya turned towards where they heard the voice, Klaus was levitating and was crisscrossed but upside down in the air. Klaus' sweater was hanging from his frame and so were his dog tags.

'Nevermind that thought of quiet' 

Diego walked over to him till they were face to face and flicked his forehead." Ow! What was that for?" Klaus brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed where Diego flicked.

He slid off his shoes and hung his jacket up, "Cause I wanted to and where's everyone else?" 

Klaus turned to his side," Oh shut your Pie hole, Ben." He turned back towards Diego," Allison is on the phone somewhere, Luther is…..being Luther I guess and Fivey is being a recluse in his room which I wouldn't bother him if I were you." 

Diego nodded his head and turned back to Klaus," Isn't all the blood rushing to your head like that?" 

Klaus flipped back upwards," it's either this or drugs," He landed his bare feet back on the floor softly," I need distractions." 

Vanya piped up and walked to Klaus," I got one, Diego got hit on by my friends." 

Klaus gasped," Diego you stud, see you're always running around in that little dominatrix get up of yours, your bound to draw somebody in…… and See I keep telling you guys he's-" 

"Klaus! One more word and my knives will be in your skull." 

"-into Kinky stuff," Klaus finished off his sentence, while one of Diego's knives almost decapitated him, but instead stuck into the pillar beside him.

Klaus jumped away and crouched behind Vanya.

Diego slipped the other one he had in his hand back in his pocket," And it's leather, not Spandex by the way." Diego said this out of habit because people always assumed it was spandex.

" Who said I didn't think it was leather?" Klaus giggled, and still hid behind Vanya."Klaus!" Diego growled at his younger brother.

"What are you guys doing?" Allison came down the stairs with what looked like some fruit and milk in her hand.

Klaus ran over to Allison and hid behind her," what about animals Diego are you into that type of stuff, I mean your name is The Kraken." He peaked up from behind her and wrapped his arms over her shoulders.

"Klaus!!" Diego raised his hand to throw one of his knives at Klaus before Allison stopped him.

" Hold up, hold up he's hiding behind me and I don't feel like getting stabbed with a knife at the moment." 

Diego sighed and dropped his hand, replacing his knife in his pocket, " what's that for anyway?" He pointed to the food she had in her hands.

"Five's lunch, he's been cooped up in his room since breakfast, dead to the world" 

Diego sighed," So all he had today was that gross sandwich he likes so much?" 

Klaus put his head on Allison's shoulder and reached over grabbing a piece of watermelon out of the bowl," And coffee, you can't forget his coffee." Diego rolled his eyes at Klaus.

" Well, I'll make dinner early today since he hasn't eaten all day practically." Diego went upstairs to his room and changed out of his work clothes to a more casual t-shirt and jeans.

When he was dating Eudora he learned how to cook since she wasn't one much for cooking. So when they all returned to the present and decided to stay mostly at the academy he had taken up the role of cooking almost all of the meals.

Diego hesitated before going back down the staircase and instead turned around, and walked up the other flight of stairs that led to where Five and Ben's rooms were. Diego raised his hand to knock on Fives door but paused before his hand made contact, if Five had locked himself away he knew he was probably busy. He dropped his hand back to his side and turned around.

He froze and stood there as he faced Ben's room which had housed someone in it for over 13 years. Diego walked over and opened the door carefully gently turning the door knob. Everyone agreed to leave his room how he had left it but occasionally someone would come in here to dust it up a bit.

Diego looked around, like most of the siblings Ben had posters on his walls and a bookcase with a ton of books. They always would call him a book worm because he was always reading. His bookshelf was organized and dusted, while most of the other siblings' books were covered in dust or trinkets lined their bookcases. Diego smiled to himself and softly closed the door back up 

He walked back down the many flights of stairs and waltzed into the kitchen to make dinner. Diego began to get everything out and started prepping everything. Diego turned around when he heard footsteps getting closer and saw Klaus walking over and sitting on the counter beside him.

Neither of them said anything to each other aside from Klaus talking and making comments towards Ben.

" You ever wonder what broccoli is thinking?" 

Diego creased his eyebrows at Klaus' question and went over to the sink to wash his hands.

" What about you Diego, cause Benny boy over here is all Mr big brain." Klaus turned to Diego while he stuck his tongue out at Ben. Diego shook his head," I'm ignoring you, Klaus." 

Klaus laid out more on the counter getting in Diego's way," You can't ignore me, Dee, you care about me too much." 

Diego sighed and pushed Klaus' legs off of the counter letting them swing down," That's the problem." 

Diego picked up a bowl and shoved it into Klaus' hands," Here help stir that at least." Klaus obliged and slowly started stirring the contents of the bowl while swinging his feet.

Klaus stayed in the kitchen with him the whole time occasionally stirring things, or helping Diego with smaller things that he knew Klaus wouldn't be able to light a fire to the house.

When Diego couldn't find things to distract Klaus with he began asking a random series of questions that Diego never answered.

" You ever think about how Five would look with long hair?" 

" Or even Ben over here always with his slicked-back hair, I bet he would look great with a man bun!" 

Diego stopped for a brief moment to imagine their two youngest brothers with long hair, Diego shook his head.

'Yeah, no'

" Does Luther ever shave, anywhere for that matter?" 

" Or does he feel weird eating meat, like he's eating one of his own?" 

Diego sighed, every glimpse he got into the thing Klaus called a brain was just getting weirder and weirder. Klaus went silent for a couple of seconds, which Diego was grateful for the moment of peace until he started talking again.

" Do you think all the dead animals can see me when I eat them? I mean they are dead and I can see the DEAD and they use me as this sorta gateway thing." 

Diego stopped what he was doing and glanced over at Klaus who looked distraught over what he was rambling about.

" So it'd make sense for all these chopped up animals to just appear whenever they want to remind me what was killed so I could eat." 

Diego slowly walked over a couple of steps so he was in front of Klaus before softly speaking.

"Klaus" 

" Just these slaughtered pigs with their intestines hanging out, I mean not that I don't see enough human intestines everyday bu-."

"Hey!" 

Diego put his hands on Klaus' shoulders, snapping him out of it and brought his attention back to Diego.

" Go wash up and call Five down for dinner for me, yeah? I'll get the others." 

Klaus nodded his head

Diego patted his shoulder and motioned with his head for Klaus to go upstairs to retrieve Five. Klaus hopped off the countertop and walked out of the kitchen.

Diego walked into the living room where both of the girls were sitting on the couch deep in conversation with one another.

" Hey, girls dinner," Diego motioned with his hand for them to follow him to the kitchen. He never bothered with Luther, knowing Allison always called him or shot him a text to come down from whatever he was doing. All three of them walked into the kitchen while they waited for the others and Vanya and Allison sat down.

Diego placed a plate in front of Vanya first then Allison who were separated by a seat between them. Klaus had insisted that Ben was to sit there, so even though nobody could see him they kept the seat empty for their youngest brother.

Allison and Vanya muttered a thank you as Luther came bounding down the stairs into the kitchen. He had been more angrier with the others lately and always cooped up in Dad's office but nobody knew what the ape of a man was doing, mostly just pissing off Diego more than usual.

Diego ruffled Vanya's hair as he passed by her to get glasses for water. He placed all 6 glasses down as he heard two pairs of footsteps coming down the stairs into the kitchen.

Usually, they could only hear Klaus' bare feet against the flooring of the house followed by them seeing little blue flashes here and there from Five.

Five walked into the kitchen and sat down in his chair across from Allison, " Wow you actually walked down here for once." Diego commented to Five as he put down a plate in front of him.

Klaus came walking in after Five and sat across From Vanya. Diego put down Klaus' plate in front of him as he started talking," See told you he wasn't dead, Allison." 

Diego stopped what he was doing and looked between Allison and Klaus wondering if he should even question it. Five turned his head towards Allison as well with his eyebrows creased.

Allison's eyes widened at Klaus' remark as she turned back towards Five," I knocked on your door for lunch and you never responded, but I did NOT think he died, Klaus." 

Diego shook his head and sat down between Five and Klaus, across from the empty chair for Ben. Klaus let his body sink down in the chair while muttering under his breath, "You acted like it."

" And why would I think our brother would be dead Klaus?" 

" Well, you can never truly know, sister of mine." 

Diego chuckled and decided to zone out the two and their bickering towards each other. He looked towards Vanya who seemed to be enjoying the two siblings and their bickering, then he looked towards Five who seemed to have Zoned out from the argument a bit ago.

'Did he have those scratches this morning?' 

Diego saw Five's cheek had two little scratches on it one was light, but the other was already scabbed up a bit.

"Where did you get these scratches from Five?" Diego questioned him while he lightly ran his thumb over Five's cheek. Five looked over at him and lifted his hand to feel the scratches on his cheek. 

Diego reached and turned over Five's hand on his lap which had the same scratches. Five looked at his other hand which was the same then slightly scooted out his chair and pulled his shorts up a bit where there were marks on his knees and shins also. He lightly chuckled at Five's feet that weren't able to reach the floor without him being on the edge of his chair.

Diego knew Five was technically a kid, but he was never the type to go outside and play with all the other siblings unless it was something he could beat them at. So even now he doubted that Five tripped while outside or something because of how scratched up he was.

While Allison and Klaus stopped bickering at each other to overhear the conversation, Diego continued looking at Five waiting for an answer from the small boy. 

"....uhhh," He saw Five quickly look over to Klaus and his expression slightly changing before he looked back up at Diego still not saying anything.

Allison cleared her throat to grab everyone's attention, " Five fell out of a tree this morning." 

' Of course, he would '

Diego turned back towards Five with his eyebrows raised, " A Tree?!" 

' What the Heck was he doing in a tree?!'

Diego didn't say that out loud but he guessed his face expressed it enough that they knew what he wanted to say.

Allison laughed," Ask Klaus he knows ."

Diego redirected his glance to Klaus who had moved to the farthest end of the table where Vanya used to sit when they were kids.

"What me? I'm just Number 4, the one who doesn't know anything," Klaus said while being very nonchalant.

Diego pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh. 

'Don't get into any trouble he says' 

'But do they listen?'

'When do they ever!'

"Klaus was the one who dropped me from the tree, " Five said to the group as he took a bite of his food. Diego and both of the girls turned their gaze back to klaus.

"Klaus!" They all yelled at him.

"What- but that's-…....uh…....Fivvvveeeee, " Klaus whined and looked over at their smallest brother.

" I said don't do ANYTHING stupid and you go and drop our brother out of a tree, " Diego said as he scolded Klaus. Klaus crossed his and pouted while Diego continued to scold him.

" You asked me the definition of stupid this morning, Klaus I didn't think I'd literally HAVE to define it to you-." 

Diego turned his head towards Five at the sound of him sputtering. Five reached for his serviette and hurriedly brought it to his mouth as he continued to laugh.

"Aha, see he's lying," Klaus jumped just out of his chair and started spastically gesturing to the younger. Five continued to laugh more but this time without the risk of spitting water out at any of them.

Diego smiled and looked up at the others who were smiling at Five as well. Klaus moved back in his seat next to Diego as they dropped the topic but was still unsure of why Five was in a tree in the first place.

Allison shook her head," Anyways aside from these boys' adventurous day, how was work and rehearsal, you two?" She questioned Diego and Vanya.

Diego motioned for Vanya to start, " The programs coming along well and I finally decided what I'm gonna play for the encore." Diego smiled at her as she lit up and continued talking about her music.

" What song?" Diego asked 

Vanya laughed and lifted her glass to her mouth and answered before taking a sip of water.

" Piece not song" 

Diego rolled his eyes 

' Ugh his Musician of a sister' 

" Okay piece, what piece Vanya?" 

" Oooooo I like pieces of stuff" Klaus jumped into the conversation. " Cake, pie, Men" 

Diego almost spit out his water as Klaus had ended on that last note. Allison looked over at Klaus with an amused look, " Klaus hon please don't talk about your sex life at the table." 

"Who said it was about my sex life?" Klaus said while looking at his nails, which looked like he had just repainted them.

Diego scoffed," Unless your a cannibal all of a sudden, I think it was about your sex life their bud." 

Klaus turned to Diego, " I'll have you know I haven't gotten any action since we came back from the 60s." 

" Yeah with that girl I saw you with in that garden?" Diego pipped up.

Allison widened her eyes at Klaus, " Klaus you could have gotten someone pregnant! And that would have messed up the timeline." 

" Awww come on Ally tiny little me's would be adorable," Klaus said cooing at the thought of it.

Diego took a sip of his water before he started talking again, " I mean this is Klaus we're talking about for all we know there could be a bunch of his offspring running around our own time." 

Luther, who had been looking at everyone confused, spoke up.

"But I thought you were-?" He pointed over at Klaus.

"Thought I was What?" Klaus replied sitting on his chair like it was a hammock.

Luther shook his head and continued back to his meal not saying anything else on the topic.

Diego peeked over at Five who seemed to have zoned out the sibling's conversation once again a while ago. Diego was about to say something to him when Allison called Diego's name, " Okay that's enough about Klaus' sex life, what about you Diego how was work?"

Diego sighed, " We got the file for the same guy we've been after." Diego said trying to shrug it off not wanting to talk about what this creep was doing to these little kids. " All I'm gonna say is don't let Claire come over here till we catch this bastard." 

Diego saw Allison look at him then move her gaze over to Five, then back to Diego with a concerned look. He knew she took the hint and was probably gonna ask him about it later.

" Don't worry I'm gonna go see her When I go out for the photoshoot I have coming up." She paused for a couple of seconds then started again. " One of you should come, I mean to meet Claire you know Five, Klaus, Luther maybe considering you guys aren't busy much." Vanya looked up and smiled at Allison and nodded her head at wanting to meet their niece. 

They all continued chatting for a few minutes till most of them were finished with dinner. Diego looked around and saw only Klaus and Five we're still finishing up their dinner, he got up and started to clear the plates.

Diego put down his and Vanya's plate near the sink and turned around when he heard someone clear their throat trying to get the other's attention.

" I wanted to ask you guys something," Five said while looking down at his plate and moving around a single piece of food with his fork.

Diego leaned back against the counter as he noticed Five wasn't asking any random question but looked torn up over what he was gonna ask. Everyone stayed quiet so they could let Five talks without being rushed.

"........I-I want to know the full story" 

Diego heard the hesitation and nervousness in Five's voice compared to his usual smug way of talking.

Five paused for a second and took a deep breath before continuing.

" Of what happened the day Ben died" 

Diego grimaced at the memory those couple of words brought back. Everyone remained quiet until Allison spoke up, " We've told you what happened Five and you also read what happened from Vanya's book." Allison replied to Five calmly, picking up her and Luther's dish and bringing it over to the counter.

" But not everything," Diego felt the tension rise as Five's voice got slightly louder than it was before out of frustration.

" Five," Vanya spoke up with her soft voice that was laced with sincerity. Five looked up from his plate and looked around at all the siblings in the room. 

" Bud, you've asked us all on separate occasions about that day and we've told you all we can," Diego said, remaining calm much like Allison, trying to talk down Five.

" Can tell me or want to tell me?" Five snapped at Diego through gritted teeth.

Diego didn't know how to answer Five's question for himself, he knew they would all tell him everything that happened that day if it was easy for them to talk about it. Diego kept the same straight face at Five as he immediately dropped his head back down and looked at his lap.

Diego looked over at Klaus who had opened his mouth to say something but wasn't even given the chance when Luther cut him off.

" It's none of your business Five, " Everyone turned towards Luther. Diego bit his tongue to not say anything to the eldest sibling, one for not letting Klaus speak and two for what he said to Five.

Five firmly placed both of his palms flat down on the table before speaking," Was I talking to you Number One?!" His tone from earlier quickly dissipated into his normal bite that carried on with his words.

" You did address everyone Number Five, " Luther said back to Five, with that usual I'm Number one tone.

Five and Luther both stood up from their chairs which made him and Allison jump forward to stop the two.

" Stop it, Luther!" Allison said with a warning and serious tone, she had her hand outstretched in front of him. Diego was still near the counter behind her, but ready to be on his toes in seconds if needed.

" Maybe I was addressing everyone who isn't to blame for Ben's death!" Five said his words filled with venom as he slammed his right hand down on the table that had curled up into a fist.

The wooden chair Vanya was sitting in skidded across the floor as she hurriedly jumped out of her chair and exited the kitchen.

" Vanya!" Allison called out as she moved around Luther to go after Vanya. She paused at the entrance to the kitchen and turned around.

" You just had to ruin dinner didn't you?" Diego was sure she meant it towards Luther but let the assurance falter as he saw the look on Five's face change. Allison turned back around and ran out of the kitchen after Vanya with Luther hot on her heels as he attempted to go after her.

There was a couple of seconds where everything was at a standstill till Five slowly sat back down in his seat, head looking back down to his lap. Diego brought his hand up to his mouth as he leaned back against the counter taking in what was happening. 

The arguing of both of his sisters and the slamming of the door was hard to miss as it echoed through the house leaving more drowning silence.

He saw Five flinch at the loud noise, which for Five was on the chart of today's things he never has seen Five do.

Diego turned his head in the direction of the creek from one of the wooden chairs and saw Klaus slowly standing up from where he was sat.

Diego watched as Klaus slowly walked over and gently laid his hand down on Five's shoulder. He saw the slight jerk from Five but he didn't push or smack Klaus' hand away.

" I'm sorry Five,"

Their usually boastful brother's voice was almost unrecognizable as he spoke in a more somber tone. Klaus looked up at Diego with a guilty look when Five didn't answer him, Diego swallowed and gave a half-smile to Klaus unsure of what he even meant by it. Klaus looked back to Five and let his hand fall off of his shoulder before walking out of the kitchen.

Diego stood across from Five still leaning on the counter trying to think of a way to approach the situation. 

"F-Five," Diego stuttered out his name. He ran his hand over his face through his hair before taking a deep breath.

He let his head hang down as he stared at the tile floor trying to think about the words he wanted to say.

" Di……?" The nickname took Diego by surprise as his head shot up to look at Five. Diego pushed himself off the counter and slowly walked over in front of Five.

He looked down at Him before bending down so he was face to face with Five. He slowly reached out his hand and cupped Five's cheek so his Thumb was on his cheek, he felt Five slightly flinch on contact but he didn't pull away.

Diego took a second to realise just how small he was, him and Ben we're always the smallest out of all 5 brothers. But here Five was sitting in front of him with his schoolboy shorts and knee-high socks and feet that couldn't quite reach the floor on the large wooden chairs.

Diego finally broke the silence between the two, " What's wrong Five?" His voice was laced with sympathy unlike earlier where he knew Five didn't want any of that.

Diego knew what was wrong, Five just wanted to know what happened to their brother, his brother. Their always quiet and small youngest brother that didn't ask for anything to happen to him, that didn't deserve anything to happen to him!

Five looked up at Diego and opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He slowly closed his mouth and let his head drop back down to his lap not making eye contact with Diego.

Diego wanted to shake the small thin boy in front of him and make him talk to him, make him accept the emotions he had that he wasn't willing to share with anyone; not even to himself.

Diego took his hand off of Fives cheek, tempted to walk away and let everything end like that, let him figure his stuff out, to let Diego himself figure Five out.

Instead, he brought his hand down to Five's knee in an act of comfort and rubbed small light circles, being careful to not touch one of the scratches he had. He stayed like that for what felt like minutes upon minutes possibly an hour but in reality, was only 1 minute at most.

He didn't know what to say, how to approach their tiny murderous gremlin who was actually a good almost 30 years older than all the siblings but somehow found himself trapped in this 13-year-olds body.

Diego pushed back what he wanted to say to the small boy and instead veered towards the safe option.

" Why don't you go upstairs and get some rest then we can all talk tomorrow." Diego felt like he was talking to a child not a 58-year-old but the small 13-year-old kid that disappeared all those years ago that they had only had back for a little over a couple of weeks.

Five nodded his head at Diego and stood up to walk out of the kitchen. Diego stood up from where he was on the floor and watched as Five walked to his bedroom.

Diego sighed, his siblings were probably scattered around the house and outside from whoever of the two sisters had left.

He walked into the living room hoping to find at least one of the others there but found no one aside from Grace who came up to Diego.

"Is everything alright dear?" she said with a concerned tone.

Diego smiled at her," Yeah just us siblings being siblings I suppose." Diego said trying to shrug her question off as he saw Klaus bounding down the stairs towards the front door. He put a hand on Grace's shoulder as he ran towards Klaus before he could leave.

" Klaus! Where are you headed?" He was dressed in his normal laced leather pants and lacey see-through black shirt accompanied by his black fur coat and leather boots. Diego walked in front of Klaus before he could escape.

" Out," was all Klaus replied as he moved around Diego and reached for his set of keys which were hung up on hooks alongside the door.

He grabbed the ones that had a small keychain with the number 4 on it and other various keychains. He stuffed them in his pocket before reaching for the door handle.

Diego reached and grabbed Klaus' shoulder to, " Hey hey hey can I drive you wherever you're going to? It's already dark out, I'd rather you not be out so late by yourself." 

" It's somewhere you wouldn't want me to be," Klaus mumbled as he fumbled with a cigarette box opening it and sticking one between his lips, then reached to his other pocket and grabbed out his lighter.

Klaus's trembling hands struggled with striking the lighter till after 4 times he brought them down in defeat knowing it was out of lighter fluid.

" Fuck!" Klaus said throwing his arms down and taking the cancer stick out of his mouth.

" Hey," Diego grabbed both sides of Klaus' arms and looked him in the eye," Let's go to the roof yeah?" 

Klaus' eyes lingered towards the door then looked back over at Diego and nodded his head 'yes'.

Diego put his hand on Klaus' back as he pushed the Séance towards the stairs. As they were about to climb the stairs to the top floor where both younger brothers' rooms were and the attic Klaus stopped in his tracks.

" Uno Momento, " Klaus held up his index finger before racing off into his room and returned clutching another lighter in his 'HELLO' hand.

Diego rolled his eyes as he started ascending the last staircase with Klaus right behind him. They rounded the corner and saw the light from Five's room shine out from under the door. Diego contemplated going and checking up on the younger but went against his idea and continued to the attic.

They both climbed over to the already open window and sat on the ledge. Klaus swung both legs over the ledge and crossed one over the other while Diego kept one leg on the ledge with his elbow leaning on it and the other hanging down.

Klaus struck the new lighter and lit the cigarette before taking a deep inhale. He jiggled his leg that was hung over the other as his hands started to shake less than they were before.

Both brothers stayed quiet looking at the sky till Klaus spoke up.

" This morning was only a one-time thing," He said quickly, taking a puff from his cigarette.

Diego turned towards him with his eyebrows creased unsure what Klaus was getting at.

" What are you talking about Klaus?" 

" This morning Ben he-..... I can make ghost corporeal including Ben," Klaus grabbed the cigarette from his lips and put it out against the window seal then turned to Diego.

" Wait, Klaus what do you mean," Diego resisted the urge to walk away and pretend like everything Klaus was saying wasn't true.

" Last night I went out after everyone was asleep and got a few drinks so I was drunk and hungover so that's why I couldn't make him corporeal this morning," Klaus said very quickly and almost tripping over his words.

" Klaus! Your not making sense right now-" 

" I've been able to make any ghost corporeal Okay! Those 3 years I was alone and sober I figured out how to do a lot, The only reason I was arguing with Ben is that I chose not to and because I couldn't today Cause of the alcohol that was still in my system from last night." 

Diego reached over and grabbed Klaus by his shoulders hard and shook his small petite frame.

" How Long Klaus!! How fucking long are you gonna keep lying to us, we've all been here thinking and believing that Ben was completely gone when you could see him all these years." 

Diego pulled back and took a deep breath as he saw tears began to rim Klaus' eyes and cascade down his face.

" He's our brother too, Klaus and you were selfish and kept him to yourself for all these years, Even during the 2nd apocalypse, you lied to us the whole time that he was there," Diego was fuming but couldn't help but feel a little bit of guilt as Klaus choked out a sob.

" I know I'm selfish I know I'm sorry! I- He was all I had, When Dad kicked me out I never saw any of you guys again. You all became successful and got jobs and girlfriends, boyfriends and Allison had a kid and got married." 

"you all moved on with your life." Klaus brought his hands up to wipe at his face smugging his makeup.

" I lost you all and I-I just didn't want to lose him too," Diego brought his hand to his face and ran it over into his hair, he was pissed at Klaus for lying and hiding all this for so long.

" I just I'm so sorry to you guys and Ben, I just keep fucking things up as I've always have in this family." 

" Fuck!" Diego cursed. He stood up from where he was sitting with Klaus and paced the room for a couple of seconds. He looked back over at Klaus but didn't say anything, the latter still crying and trying to wipe away his tears with his coat sleeve.

" I'm sorry Diego I- I should go," Klaus jumped up and began to walk out of the room. Diego hurriedly grabbed onto Klaus' upper arm and turned him back around.

" Klaus come on sit back down," Diego put his hand on Klaus' back and guided him back to the window seal where Diego sat back down next to him.

Diego scooted closer to Klaus and this time lowered his voice, " come here, " He wrapped his arms around Klaus and put his chin on top of his head.

" I'm sorry Klaus I Didn't- I sh-shouldn't have said any of that." Klaus continued to cry into Diego's shirt as Diego tightened his arms around Klaus careful not to hurt him.

" You're not a fuck up Klaus okay? Just your Klaus and after all these years you stayed you, that fun kind sibling we all care for and love." Diego lifted up Klaus's chin gently so he was looking at him.

" That I Love"

He lifted his thumb to Klaus' face and used it to wipe away smudged eyeliner and the still falling tears. He pulled Klaus back close to his chest and at this point, Klaus was practically sitting on Diego's lap.

They both sat like that for a couple of minutes and let the breeze from outside slowly drift over them, blowing the fur lining on Klaus' coat. Klaus' tears disappeared but Diego kept his hold on the younger firm.

Diego only started to pull away when he felt Klaus shiver as a gust of wind blew in.

Diego pulled back with his hands still on Klaus' shoulders but in a comforting manner and Klaus fist still grabbing onto the front of Diego's Shirt.

" Come on let's head inside where it's warmer and get some rest," Diego patted Klaus shoulder as they both jumped off the window seal onto the attic floor. Diego closed the window behind them then followed Klaus down the staircase to where their bedrooms were.

They both walked in front of Klaus' bedroom where Diego pulled Klaus into another hug," try to get some sleep, Klaus." He pulled away and turned to go towards his room but stopped when he felt Klaus grab his shirt sleeve.

" Can I sleep with you tonight?" Diego was shocked, he couldn't recall a time Klaus had asked him his permission if he could sleep with him rather just walked in whenever he pleased.

He contemplated his answer which would usually be yes but right now the anger of what Klaus had just revealed to him was still simmering deep down.

" I….I just need some space right now kay'?" He watched as Klaus' expression on his face dropped, Diego couldn't recall a time he's ever denied Klaus from sleeping with him this would be one of the first.

Diego reached over and ruffled Klaus' hair then turned to walk away this time Klaus' hand didn't reach out for him. He heard Klaus' bedroom door close softly behind him as he continued to walk towards his room.

He had planned to go on his normal nightly escapade but after everything that went down, he reframed from going, even though the thought of that bastard hurting kids was still lingering in his mind.

Diego reached for his doorknob and was about to turn it When the front door opened followed by arguing. He stepped back and rounded the corner to the stairwell to see what was going on.

Allison stood in the middle of the foyer looking up at Luther while she argued with him," You just couldn't keep your mouth shut could you Luther?" 

" Allison I-," Luther attempted to sputter out but Allison cut him off.

" You know what save it, Luther. We finally were being a family except for you……. I don't know what problem you have against our siblings but you need to grow up and get over that Number One complex of yours you have going on because this is ridiculous Luther." 

Allison spun around and walked towards the staircase Diego was leaning on. She stopped at the top of the staircase to talk to him, " Vanya went back to her apartment for the night. I'm not sure if she's gonna be back tomorrow morning or not." Allison gave a sympathetic smile to Him then continued to walk up the set of stairs, the clicking of her heels faded out as she got farther from him.

Diego walked down a couple of steps and sat down letting out a low whistle," you made somebody pissed."

Luther quickly turned to him and glared at Diego," Shut up Diego it's none of your business." 

Diego let out an airy chuckle," You know what it is my business cause she's my sister, much like how Ben is Five's brother also." 

Diego pushed himself off of the steps while shaking his head," You know Five was right, these past 13 almost 14 years we've all blamed you for Ben's death because if you were of have had actually acted like the leader you supposedly were, He would not be dead right now………. You never protected our siblings as much as you could have only the bare minimum." 

Diego turned around to go back to the bedrooms when Luther spoke up," like you were any better of a brother." 

Diego could feel the anger boiling and bottling up inside of him the whole time and that last mark blew all of his control out the window.

" NO Luther I was not the best I could have been to them but at least I'm man enough to admit that…. And I did more for them than you can imagine, was it as much as I should have? No, but I did something Luther. Heck, what have you done? Lock Vanya away like an animal where she was scared and terrified, toss Five off of a staircase like he was a piece of trash, throw Klaus around, and actually killed him all because he was trying to help you." 

Diego ran a hand through his hair and took a breath before continuing," Y-you pulled Vanya into a hug just so you could knock her out, And Five what if he didn't use his powers in time? Fuck, you would have just tossed a defenseless 13-year-old knowing he would have possibly gotten hurt, and all Klaus was trying to do was help you; the person who has never given a damn about him, but in return, he gets pushed around and visits upstairs for a hot minute." 

He was seething as all the memories came flooding in of all the times Luther had hurt all the siblings but of course with the exception of Allison. He was glad that even though Luther did all those things it was a situation where they could use their powers to not get hurt or in Klaus' case die.

The thought of another one of his siblings dying made Diego's stomach turn and bile threaten to climb up his throat.

Diego turned back around," So fuck off Luther." 

He didn't receive any comments from Luther as he made his way back over to his bedroom actually going in this time.

Diego closed his bedroom door and changed into a thin t-shirt and some sweat pants before switching the light switch off. He flopped down on his bed and tried to close his eyes to sleep. The events of today barreled through his mind as he thought about the case, Five, Vanya, Klaus, and Ben.

He opened his eyes and turned onto his side facing the clock on his bedside table. 

11:53 

He huffed out a breath and sat upon his bed, switching on the light. He knew he wasn't going to get any sleep tonight, but he also knew who else wasn't either.

'Fuck'

' Maybe Five was right about him too, he was a pushover' 

Diego tried to push the thought away until the bright red LED lights on the clock shone 12:15. He started to feel guilt that he knew he shouldn't be feeling till he pushed himself out of his bed and out his door toward klaus' room.

He didn't bother knocking and slowly opened the Séances door to his room. As soon as the door was open Klaus shot up from his position curled in on himself buried under multiple blankets, despite it being warm in his room.

"Diego…?" 

Diego chuckled a little," The one and only, now come on before I leave you in here alone with Ben the friendly ghost." 

Diego didn't want to openly tell Klaus it was fine for him to come sleep with him so he was glad when Klaus took the hint and tumbled out of his bed over towards Diego.

They both walked into Diego's room where he went over to the farther end of his room and switched on a small lamp, so there would still be a little bit of light for Klaus once all his lights were off.

He turned back around and saw Klaus had found one of Diego's hoodies which he had slipped on and was hanging off of his small frame. Diego let him wear the hoodie, stealing clothes from all of his siblings wasn't an unusual thing Klaus did anyways. 

They both didn't say anything as Diego grabbed some of his old smaller sweat pants and tossed them at Klaus. He slid them on and had to double-knot them so they wouldn't fall down this thin waist. Diego slipped under his blankets first then moved over and held up the blanket for Klaus to crawl under. 

He felt Klaus curl up to his chest as he pulled an extra blanket around Klaus who was always cold as ice. Diego reached over and turned off the lamp beside his bed which made the smaller light at the other side of the room brighter.

Diego laid his arm over Klaus and wrapped it around him as the younger began to drift off. Diego stayed like that with his 30-year-old technically younger brother cuddled up next to him with his legs twisted in Diego's. He glanced down and saw Klaus was completely asleep yet he himself still couldn't fall asleep. 

He glanced over at the clock multiple times throughout the night. The first time reading 1:31. Then the next time he looked over it read 3:05.

A couple of minutes passed as Klaus started to stir a bit, Diego found his hand in klaus' hair combing through it which stopped his squirming around. Diego let more time slip by, occasionally focusing mostly on Klaus' soft breathing and the rise and fall of his chest.

He dreaded looking over at the clock as it read 5:42. He sighed for this was the 2nd night with little or no sleep in a row. This was usually the time he got up to do everything but there he was laying, having got no sleep whatsoever. The sun had already begun to rise as the tiniest bit of light started streaming in through his windows.

Diego looked down at Klaus, who he pondered on squirming his way out of Klaus grip or just waking the latter so he could escape. Diego decided to try his luck and just squirm his way out of Klaus' lengthy limbs. He carefully pulled back the blankets from him but still kept them on Klaus and started to peel off each extremity that was tangled with his own.

He moved off of his bed and covered Klaus back up with the blankets. He threw on one of his sweaters and exchanged the sweat pants for some jeans before exiting the room, softly letting the door click shut behind him.

He made his way down to the kitchen and began to prepare Breakfast as he does most every morning. The only difference was he didn't have work today so his work clothes were replaced with more comfy clothes.

Allison was the first to come down to the kitchen followed by Klaus who was still dressed in Diego's clothes. Diego heard the front door open then slam back shut as Vanya walked into the kitchen and sat down. Nobody was talking to each other besides Klaus who kept making small jokes to cheer everyone up.

" Did I ever tell you guys about the time I waxed my ass with chocolate pudding? I know I told Five and Luther but I don't think I told you guys." They all turned to him mostly with a disgusted face.

" It was so painful, Kinda what I imagine if you wax Your you know bits," Klaus let out a whistle while pointing down to his crotch.

Allison chuckled a little, " Klaus dear what were you doing with chocolate pudding in the first place?" She questioned him 

Klaus' eyes lit up even more than they were before," Well you see meine schwester it started when-." 

At that moment Luther came in and interrupted Klaus in the middle of him explaining his antics," So let's start the family meeting." 

Diego scoffed," Forgetting one still if you hadn't noticed with that monkey brain of yours." Allison jumped in before the boys could start arguing," He might be asleep still he was up late last night."

" Or he might've never gone to bed, this is Five we're talking about," Vanya said more quietly than the other.

" She's got a point," Diego agreed as he stood behind Vanya's chair.

"Well then someone go get him," Luther said while sitting down in the chair at the head of the table.

Diego's grip tightened on the back of Vanya's chair as his anger got the best of him," You know Luther you cou-." Before Diego could finish Klaus jumped up from his chair making everyone look towards him.

" Oh look I'll go get little Fivey, but if I get murdered I'm blaming one of you," Klaus walked out of the kitchen towards all the sibling's rooms.

Diego loosened his grip on the back of the chair as Vanya looked up at him with a small half-smile. He smiled back and pulled the chair at the farthest end of the table close to her and sat down. They waited a couple of minutes then some more time passed that Klaus hadn't returned with Five. 

" What's taking him so long," Luther asked in an agitated way. Diego crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair, " Not that you would know or care but Five hates being woken up and is quite hard to wake up as well." 

They waited a couple more minutes till Diego started to notice that this was too long just to wake up the small Boy.

At that moment Klaus came running back into the kitchen, " Diego, Allison!" Klaus yelled. His hand was holding his chest as he took fast sporadic breaths clearly out of breath. 

" Five he's- he's gone." Diego got up and walked over to Klaus," What do you mean he's gone, Klaus," Diego questioned even though Klaus had already Given him the answer.

" Gone Diego as in not here, Me and Ben searched everywhere we thought he would be in the house he's not here," Klaus gestured with his hands as he spoke trying to emphasize his point.

'Fuck' 

Diego ran up to Fives room with most of the siblings trailing behind him. He walked into Five's room and noticed his light was still on even though it was day time. And his normally organised room had his books littered over his desk and bed along with an equation on his wall circled multiple times in chalk.

"Do you think the commission got him?" Allison asked unsure of where Five was as well.

Diego looked around Five's room trying to get anything to tell him where he was. His eyes landed back on the circled equation and noticed a date scrawled out next to it. Diego walked over to the wall that the smaller usually stood on his bed to reach, but was in perfect height with Diego.

He immediately recognised the date, the one that was in newspapers for weeks, the day when only 5 siblings came home instead of the 6 they had at the time. The day they were all covered in blood that wasn't theirs or their enemies but rather their brothers.

'NoNoNoNo' 

"Fuck!" Diego cursed aloud this time hitting the wall and walking away not looking back at his siblings who all had worried looks. They all looked at each other then walked over to look at what Diego had seen. The realisation hit everyone as they saw the date, everyone remained quiet letting their minds piece together where Five had gone.

Diego knew that it might be a couple of days, months, or a couple of years before they saw their brother again. Maybe even another 16 years or more. 

This time Five was gone 

And possibly 

Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meine Schwester - German for " my sister" 
> 
> Encore- Usually a piece played by the soloist after the main performance has ended.
> 
> Also I'm loving writing the interactions between Diego, Klaus, and Five those 3 are my favorite( and Ben!) 
> 
> Also this chapter went a little over 10k words which I've never done before the longest I've done is what you guys have seen( which is like 3k-4k) so tell me if you guys enjoy these longer chapters or the shorter one's are fine 😁😊
> 
> ~~~~~~~VirusError🌸


	5. Stuck Somewhere In Between, Alive And Living A Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from- Caves by Jack's Mannequin
> 
> SEASON 3 IS OFFICIAL MY PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> This was an emotional rollercoaster to write😭😭
> 
> And no I did not edit this during chemistry class pshshshhs what are you talking about? *sweats nervously* 😅
> 
> ( Five needs to give me a lesson on quantum physics because man it's kicking my but XDXD)
> 
> Also you all are making my day with your comments that your leaving on here and I just wanna thank you guys SOOOO much. 
> 
> Without further ado here's the next chapter that has taken me the longest to write.
> 
> ENJOY~~~~~
> 
> Edit:OMG IM SO SORRY I completely forgot Virus here again this contain spoilers for the comics more specifically The Dallas arc. As always if your planning to read the comics please do so before reading this.....and if you have no interest in the comics please enjoy the story 😊
> 
> TW: Small mentions of domestic abuse (very very small)

Five (Pov)

Aching pain and stiffness flooded Five's body as his eyes fluttered open revealing the daylight. He pushed himself up by his arms so he was sitting down still leaning against the brick wall.

He yawned and attempted to rub the tiredness out of his eyes as he remembered where he had been laying the entire night. Five quickly pushed himself off of the grotesque floor and wiped his hands on his blazer.

'Gross' 

He slightly swayed as he stood up and took a couple of seconds to get his balance back. The darkness from the alleyway made it hard to tell if it was morning or the middle of the day. As soon as he stepped out of the alleyway he realised that he had slept through time he could have been using to find the guys responsible for Ben's death. 

Five rounded the back alley of the house that went off into the sidewalk so he ended up on the side of the house now facing the buildings across. He looked around making sure no one was around before slipping into the entrance of the old laundry mat that used to be there. Today was one of the siblings' training days so Five knew they wouldn't pass by the kitchen and notice him at the farthest end.

He knew the guys would probably pass the house at least once to stalk the family considering they had such an elaborate plan and detail on them. Five yawned again and lifted his hand to wipe away the tears that gathered in his eyes, even though he had gotten sleep last night the previous weeks of lack of sleep were still having an effect on him.

Sleep wasn't ever of importance to him for 45 years or since he returned. For the first 40 years he found sleep whenever he could, often sleeping in old crumbled down abandoned buildings to block out most of the wind as he could. The winter was the worst, snow and rain fell constantly with temperatures dropping well below freezing, he eventually found a place to go during the season but that didn't mean it made it any easier.

The last 5 years he was with the Temps he at least was given a hotel and a bed to sleep on every night. He's probably slept in every hotel around the world at least once possibly twice with some.

But now sleep was something that he was able to do without worrying about his siblings or the end of the world. Yet he never took advantage of it, the constant nagging of his siblings finding him awake at 3 in the morning making coffee happened almost every night after they all had returned. 

Diego's lectures on how sleep was important for a "growing child" and the amount of coffee he was consuming was unhealthy. Or even Klaus joking around that Five should go sleep with Diego if he couldn't sleep, he often just responded to Klaus with empty threats.

Not that Five would ever admit the few times during their youth he snuck into the vigilante's bed. Or even the few times in the past weeks since they've been back that the thought had popped into his head after countless hours of tossing and turning followed by more than enough caffeine to keep a horse awake.

He is 58 years old and the top assassin of the commission yet he has Diego yelling at him every night to remember to brush his teeth before bed. Not to mention both him and Allison having a heart attack about every little wound he got, which was probably from him hiding that shrapnel wound from them.

Things changed yet at the same time they didn't

Five let out a sigh as he saw a black car pull up directly across from the academy.

Bingo! 

One guy got out of the passenger side of the vehicle and Five immediately recognized him as one of the guys he saw at Griddy's Doughnuts. He was the much older and taller man of the two men he saw, but from what he heard there were others as well. The man pulled a hood over his head and walked towards a nearby shop that was across the street down the road a bit. Five knew he could follow and just kill the guy right there.

Like all the old times slip in, do the deed, then slip out all in a matter of seconds. He grimaced at himself for even having that thought, reverting to his old ways at the commission. 

The man stays gone for a long while but then comes back to the car but doesn't get in. The Guy in the driver seat gets out of the vehicle, only this isn't the younger guy Five saw at the dinner. This guy is somewhere in his possible mid 30's. Not older looking like the other guy but not young either and he didn't have his hood up like the other man.

He walked around the car over to the sidewalk where the other guy was waiting. He sees him hand something covered in black cloth over to the other guy then they both begin to walk opposite directions.

Were they not working together? 

Five knew it was too suspicious for them to have stopped right in front of the academy then both got out of the car wearing complete black hoodies for others to not recognize them.

Five had to follow one of them at least, they might just be splitting up but heading to the same location so other people wouldn't follow them back. Five opted for the guy that took the risk of not wearing the hood over his face like the other guy, he wasn't afraid to be recognised. 

Five waited till the guy rounded a corner then Five jumped to hide behind the corner he just rounded. He knew he shouldn't use his powers because of the big attracting flash of blue but he needed to get across the street quickly.

The guy took another turn in between some buildings down an alleyway, Five knew he was trying to stay hidden. but as many twists and turns, he had already taken and in such a public place Five doubted this was too anywhere secret.

Five continued to follow, turning weird ways in all the back-alleys till he realised they had already gone in a circle.

Was the guy lost? 

The guy was about to make a left which would lead them into another circle then he stopped and took a sharp right.

Five followed after and then remembered this way led into a dead end. The guy stood there facing away from Five staring at the wall of the dead-end and reached into his pockets.

Five reached for the switchblade he carried with him, having left his handgun at home, he didn't need to leave evidence that someone had traveled back in time by tracing the bullets and matching it to his model of gun. Let's just say it was more than a couple of centuries old.

Five didn't know if the guy was armed but he was reaching for something, but Five didn't know what he was reaching for.

The guy pulled his hand out and it was his phone, Five relaxed a little but still kept his hand firmly on his switchblade. The guy typed something short, possibly a single word before putting it back in his pocket.

Five still couldn't piece together why this guy went in circles for the past 30 minutes then stopped at a dead end and in all places an alleyway.

Before Five could register what was going on he heard the crack of a gunshot, but the guy in front of him still had both hands in his pockets and was facing the wall.

Suddenly Five noticed his ears were ringing and the world was spinning faster and faster till he collapsed to the floor. He felt the impact of the concrete against his body, the banging in his head as it hit made it seem like the world was flashing in and out. His heart was racing like that of a mouse as his hands began to get clammy from his pumping adrenaline.

It was a trap 

Everything hit him, the pain searing in his left side followed by the warmth that seeped from the same side. It was so warm yet Five began to feel cold much like how he imagined Klaus felt all the time.

Death

Death was cold 

Was he…….dying? 

Five blinked his eyes and forced them to open again as he slowly moved his hand down to the pain radiating in his body. He didn't have the strength to move his head so he brought his hand back up to his field of vision. It was completely coated in the bright red liquid and smelled of iron.

He dropped his hand back down on the concrete floor he was laying on. He had to get up, he was supposed to save Ben, he had to return back to his family. Five's curled up hand glowed blue covering the crimson red his hand was covered in but quickly sparked out. 

'Shit!!'

Five placed his trembling arms under him and tried to push himself at least on his back. He quickly came crashing back down to the floor as a heavyweight pushed him back down. Five felt the outline of a large shoe on his back holding him down. Five looked in front of him again at the guy he was following that was barely walking towards him.

None of this made sense to Fives foggy mind, how had he'd been so careless to not be aware of his surroundings. Five remembered the older guy who took the item covered in the black cloth case and walked in the opposite direction from the guy he was following.

It was a gun

They knew about him from the beginning, it was all a setup.

Five tried to push the guy's foot off of him but it only resulted in his head getting stepped on, slammed, and grinded into the floor. Five let out a cry he didn't mean to, it showed he was in pain, it showed he was weak. He felt his head spin and a sudden urge to vomit but kept swallowing back the saliva that collected in his mouth.

The guy's foot lifted off of his head as the one who he was following bent down in front of him and yanked Fives head up by his hair.

"Seems you actually feel for our little trap huh? Agent Number Five," The guy spit Five's name out of his mouth.

'The Temps'

The last that Five had heard Dot and Herb were in charge of the commission now but this is the commission he's talking about, things never stayed one way over there.

"See, since you left the commission has done some cool things to make the job easier for us," The guy began to pull off a latex covering that was over his face that Five hadn't even noticed. It looked like a professional makeup artist was the one who did it, which made Five wonder why they didn't have someone do that a long time ago. Way less risk of anyone getting caught.

The guy got his face too close for Five's liking and whispered in his ear, "You're following the wrong guy's Number Five." His breath was hot against Five's ear as he processed what he said.

"Think of us almost like doppelgangers…. The real guys that you saw at that little doughnut shop of yours are still out there scheming away to kill your precious little brother. While we were just some decoys to distract you and lure you farther and farther away from your target."

The guy let go of Fives head letting it fall back to the ground with a 'thud'. Five looked up at the guy as he stood up, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack half full of cigarettes and a black lighter with an Ouija board design on it.

Five's eyes widened 

The lighter was Klaus' 

And Five was 100 percent sure that was the same brand Klaus always smoked. The guy looked at him with a shit-eating grin on his face and gave Five a questioning look.

"Oh, these look familiar?" 

No…..No…...NoNoNoNoNo!

Not Klaus, Not his brother 

The guy bent back down and lit a cigarette, taking a puff out of it before blowing the smoke in Five's face.

"Ya see kid, you left your own timeline all by yourself……..Your siblings allllllll alone without you." He paused and took another drag from the cigarette. 

Five put his head back down but was quickly pulled back up by his hair again by the guy standing on top of him. This time he was pulled by his hair up into a sitting position on his knees, his arms pulled back behind him together farther than they should be. Five's head lulled downwards, his breathing was uneven and every part of his body ached. The guy behind him pulled his head back so he was looking up at the guy in front of him.

"You abandoned your Precious siblings without even leaving a note or telling them where you were going," He tapped on the cigarette letting the ashes fall between both of them on the floor in front of Five.

Five inhaled a deep ragged breath

'Why did he leave when he finally had them back?' 

Five's eyes stayed glued to the ashes on the ground. He hadn't seen ashes since he was in the apocalypse, all the siblings had made sure to keep things involving fire away from him. Klaus never smoked around him but they made the excuse that they didn't want him getting second hand smoke. 

Diego always told him to stay out of the kitchen when he was cooking and said he just didn't want anyone getting hurt, yet Five's seen all the times Klaus, Vanya, and Allison have helped him make dinner.

Five now had a better understanding why they did all that for Him. Five looked over and saw the walls and buildings that were standing seconds ago now they were a pile of rubble on the ground. The normally blue sky and clear air filled with ash, so much it hurt to breathe. The blue sky was grey and everything was gone. He felt his heart pounding against his chest as the rise and fall of his chest became for rapid. He came back from literal hell to get home to his family yet he left them again. He left them to die and this time it was all because of him.

Five was yanked out of his train of thought as he felt burning on his knee. The guy was snuffing out his cigarette on his right knee and rubbed it till it started to bleed. He flicked the butt of the cancer stick over his shoulder and stood up in front of Five. Then he reached in his pocket and threw both of the items that belong to Klaus in front of Five.

"The one with the knives put up the hardest fight, quite protective too……. Now The skinny one in the skirt was the easiest to take out, didn't put up much of a fight did he?" He asked the one who was holding Five.

He held out his hand to the other guy who gave him a knife. Five knew those Knives they were the ones Diego always has used since they were very young. The guy twirled it in his hand a little before tossing it on the floor in front of Five with the other things.

Five didn't want to believe any of this until he saw the engraving of the throwing knife. The number 2 and an umbrella were engraved on one end, Five felt a lump form in his throat but he ignored it.

"You bastard!" Five said through gritted teeth.

The guy laughed, "Now the big fella was easy to take down too….well only when we told him a little secret." The guy put his finger to his lips in a mocking way. "7 siblings yet only 6 mothers didn't that ever seem strange to you?" 

'6 mothers?' 

"Well let's play a little guessing game why don't we?" He began to walk slowly back and forth in front of Five and continued to talk.

"Now... let's say two of the siblings are twins and they were born 4 minutes apart. As I recall you guys were numbered on who was born First, just so happens you guys were all born a minute apart from each other." He crouched down in front of Five and made his voice more deeper than before, trying to intimidate Five.

"So…... let's do a little math here and I'll give you a hint one of the twins is the big fella."

'No that can't be possible' 

Five's eyes widened and the guys in front of him grin grew at Five's realisation,"Bingo!" 

'He and Luther were…... Twins?'

The guy laughed and stood up," Wow isn't that a little mind fuck for you?" 

'How was this possible?' 

"As much as we would love to sit here and chit-chat some more, we have a job to return to and man oh man do you'll know how much of a raise we'll get when everyone hears WE killed Number Five, the best assassin the commissions ever had," He whistled.

'Killed…..'

The guy stepped back and swung his leg, kicking Five in the face throwing him across the concrete. Five felt so weak but he tried to push himself back up, he felt a shoe make contact with his ribs which just made him plummet whatever progress he made back to the ground.

His hand reached for his side which was still bleeding while they continued to kick him repeatedly. Five didn't fight back, correction he couldn't fight back.

Five finally thought they left when the hits stopped coming but realized they were set out for his life not to just torture him. Five felt the guy hover over him then stab right where the bullet hole was, twisting the knife before yanking it out. Five cried out in pain while he heard both men laugh.

Five knew he had to do something, anything before they killed him. He tried once more with his powers but his fist didn't even stay blue for a second before it fizzed out. 

He was gonna die 

The guy grabbed Five by his neck and held him just high enough the tip of Five's shoes scraped against the ground.

"Any last words kid?" 

As soon as Five parted his lips to speak, the hand around his neck tightened, cutting off any oxygen for Five to breathe. 

The guy laughed, "Cat caught your tongue?" 

Five tried to kick his legs to get any traction on the concrete, but the guy only lifted him higher off the ground. Five clawed at the hands around his neck till everything started fading in and out and his hands went slack. Five attempted to reach for his switchblade, but it tumbled out of his grasp as his motor skills stopped working.

The guy walked over closer to one of the alleyway walls still with a tight grip on Five's neck and bashed Five's head into the wall. 

Five couldn't hear anything, all the sound drowned out and everything went black as he felt his head getting bashed into the wall again. His body fell limp to the floor right next to the items of his deceased siblings. His hand fell next to Diego's knife and he attempted to move his hand over the centimeter to grab it. 

He fought to keep his eyes open as his pinky hooked around the cold metal. His hand fell limp on top of it, the guy came over and stepped on Five's hand. He didn't have the energy to move his hand much less cry out in pain. Five grimaced and not from the pain, he wasn't even gonna use the knife he just wanted to hold it. 

Everything began to feel fuzzy as Five fought against every ounce of his will to keep his eyes open. Both guys laughed and stood over him as the one who he followed in the first place bent down,

"Night kid…." 

They both walked out of the alleyway and far enough away that Five could no longer hear their footsteps. Everything stayed hazy as the world got less and less unclear. Five let his eyes fall shut as it took more and more effort for him to breathe.

Maybe their father was right after all this time, Five never was ready to time travel. Now because of him, everyone he loved was dead for the 4th time. The only difference now was Five was almost dead now too as well, he couldn't save them or himself.

Five took one more forced inhale before letting the breath out. Everything was calm, almost warm, comfy, and peaceful like what most people called home. Only for him, his home was never anything more than a prison, a place designed to keep children locked away and abused.

Five laid there until everything stopped

~~o0o~~ 

Five heard what he thought was crying but everything was fading in and out as he started to feel his senses again. His body felt heavy and so did his eyelids but all he could concentrate on was the crying which he could definitely make out now.

Five felt something tight wrapped around his abdomen where the knife and gunshot wound was. As well as the areas where everything throbbed with pain.

Who was crying?

Five tried to pry open his eyes and only made it so far before bright fluorescent lights blinded his vision making him grimace and shut his eyes again. Five took a deep breath suddenly noticing the soreness of his ribs, it didn't feel like any were broken but bruised for sure.

Five attempted to open his eyes again this time succeeding on getting passed the bright lights. Five winced as he now realized he had a concussion and a bad one too as the lights felt like they were digging into his skull. Five tried to bring his hand up to block the light a bit but felt something tug back on his arm. Five looked over towards his arm and saw a IV threaded into the crook of his elbow.

Someone's sniffling brought Five's attention back forward which were the lights. Five grimaced again at the pain in his head but momentarily pushed it aside. He could recognise those lights like the back of his hand, having been under them many times as a small child.

He was in the medical bay at the Academy

So who was crying?

Five quickly looked over to his right side and found the source of the sound. All his siblings including Grace and Pogo were spread out on that side of the room. Klaus, Vanya, and Allison were crying while everyone else looked somber.

They were alive?

But……..how,what happened?

Luther was at the back of the room looking down at the floor so were Grace and Pogo. Klaus; who Five probably was hearing, was crying hard into Diego's shoulder while the elder had his arms wrapped around him very securely holding him as close as he could. 

Diego was rubbing his hand up and down Klaus' back while occasional sniffling himself. Five could tell he was trying to hold it together for Klaus much like he always did in situations when he needed to be the big brother to them all.

Allison was hugging Vanya who were both crying but not as hard as Klaus, but Five still didn't know why everyone was acting this way. Five slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position letting his hand hold the spot where both wounds were. Nobody moved or even looked his way as if he was invisible, not even Grace or Pogo showed any acknowledgment towards him.

Five pushed himself to the end of the bed, making a lot of noise and movement yet nobody looked over towards him still.

"Hey, I'm awake, " Five said rather loud, announcing it to everyone in the room.

Still nothing 

Five stretched his arm over and waved it in front of Diego who was closest to the bed and still no movement, not even a flinch.

"Diegoooo," Five drugged out his name and brought his hand up snapping a couple of times in front of his face. There was still no reaction which was getting Five irritated.

"Di…!" Five tried the nickname knowing Diego always responded to that in a heartbeat. Five still received nothing but silence from his older brother.

"If this is your guy's idea of a prank, i'm really not having it right now." Five reached out to tug on Diego's shirt but instead of grabbing the material his hand completely passed through his brother.

Five scrambled back on the bed looking at his hand, he couldn't ignore the racing of his heart and the aching feeling of anxiety that crept up on him out of nowhere. Five yanked the IV out of his and pulled his hands closed to him.

NoNoNoNoNo 

He didn't understand any of this 

Were they dead? Was he dead? Why couldn't Klaus see him if he was dead? Why was he even at the modern day Academy when he was in 2006?

Five wanted something, Anything to make sense right now. He felt like a child that had gotten lost from their mother in a grocery store; Scared, Lost, and Alone.

"Five?!" Five turned around and saw Ben walking in the door towards him. That was impossible Five hasn't changed anything for Ben's death not to happen.

"Ben?" Five hated the way his voice sounded so small as he said his brother's name. He was wearing the same black outfit with the leather jacket like they had all last seen him when they were trying to stop Vanya and Klaus channeled him.

Ben ran over and pulled Five into a hug, Five's hands clung onto the back of Ben's jacket. He was real, there was no blue aura surrounding him or anything he was physically in front of Five. Five noticed no one moved and looked towards Ben either when he walked in.

Ben pulled back away from the hug and watched as Five as he still hung onto Ben's jacket sleeve, afraid to let go as he might disappear again.

"Am I…..dead? A-Are our dead siblings? Are you still dead?" Five questioned Ben still confused what exactly the hell was going on.

Ben put both of his hands on Five's shoulders and looked him in the eye, "None of that matters right now okay Five? I just need you to Wake Up." 

Wake up?

But he was awake? 

Right? 

"W-What but I… What's going on?" Five questioned his once younger brother but now physically older. Ben shook his head,"All you need to know is that Me and you are real, everything else here is just all in your head okay?" 

Five looked around at everything and reached his hand towards the one person he knew would be able to tell if he was dead or alive.

Ben quickly grabbed Five's hand in his own, getting Five's attention back towards him, "Hey, look at me, you shouldn't be here okay, you can't be here with me. You need to leave so I need you to wake up." 

Leave Ben? 

But he just got him back

"Why can't you come with me?" Five asked even more confused of what was going on. Ben was dead yet here he was in front of Five completely alive without Fives intervention to the past. But now Ben was telling Five to leave him and to wake up even though Five could guarantee he was awake.

Ben sighed, "That's not know it works Five, please I just need you to leave here and I promise everything will make sense once you do." 

Five knew Ben wouldn't randomly tell Five to do things unless he had a serious reason but that still didn't ease any of the tightness in his chest that he knew wasn't from an injury.

Five didnt realise the tears running down his face till Ben cupped his face in his hands, wiping away his tears with his thumb. 

"I'm scared, Ben," Five sounded weak, and small. He felt tired and exhausted, he had that same aching feeling of wanting to go home like when he was in the apocalypse. He's never outright talked to his siblings about his emotions. All his siblings he always refused to open up to, to show any affection towards them, constantly pushing them away. Even when he lost them time after time, he took everything for granted.

Ben pulled Five up into his arms while Five held onto Ben because now he knew he was gonna disappear again. Five tried to stop the traitors from running down his face, they were going against what Five wanted but what his body wanted was more overpowering than what he wanted to do.

He felt Ben try to slightly pull away but Five refused to loosen his grip on him. He kept his arms wrapped around him gripping onto the back of his leather jacket,"Please…. don't go." Five didn't care that his voice cracked, he didn't care he was crying in his brother's arms, his walls were broken down and there was nothing he could do to rebuild them back up now.

Ben pulled back and looked Five in the face, "I'm sorry Five, I have to do this." Ben quickly let go and walked far enough that Five couldn't grab onto him before walking out of the room.

No No, please don't leave me alone

Five quickly pushed himself off the bed against his body's protest and landed on the floor. Five almost collapsed to the ground due to the pain he was in but was able to steady himself out.

Five grabbed his side and started to walk towards the door Ben walked out of. Instead of the normal dark hallway, it normally led to. Everything disappeared and turned black, Ben was gone and so was the house he grew up in. Five felt like he was falling and falling till everything stopped again.

~~o0o~~

Five bolted up but quickly but immediately regretted it, he grabbed at his side and fell back down on whatever he was laying on. He looked around, he was in a room, a bedroom to be exact and he was laying on a bed. Five looked down, he was bandaged up around his wound as well as many other places around his body that were injured.

His blazer, vest, tie, and white button-up were laid folded up nicely on the foot of the bed while he laid on the bed with just his White undershirt on.

Five turned his head and saw a bedside table with the things that belonged to his siblings as well as his switchblade. A glass, as well as a pitcher full of water, laid next to everything. Five pushed himself up as best as he could so he was leaning on his elbow.

' Where was he?' 

Five looked over at the clock that was hung up on the wall, it read 5:43.

Five knew it was PM because the setting sun was shining in through the window that was open ajar, just enough for air to blow in. The Creme and peach-colored curtains swayed up and down as the cold gentle breeze rolled into the Room, making Five slightly shiver. 

Five swung his legs over and pushed himself up to where he was in a sitting position at the edge of the bed. The bed was small but just about the size of Five's bed at home and close to the floor too so his feet didn't dangle.

Every part of his body ache yet Five wasn't focused on that but what he had just woken up from.

' Why did Ben leave him?' 

He told him to wake up and everything would make sense yet everything that has happened the past 24 hours has made no sense to him. From what he was told, everyone was dead and He and Luther are…...twins? 

Five's head was foggy not only from it getting bashed into the wall a couple of times but everything he was trying to process, he had too many questions but not enough answers.

Five reached out his hand and grabbed Klaus' lighter, he turned it over and sure enough, there was a small number 4 etched into the black paint of the lighter. Five closed his hand tight around the lighter and kept it in his lap.

Five reached over to where his clothes were laid and started to put them back on. He picked up his button-up shirt and started to slip it back on, his clothes smelled of soap but it threw Five off because his clothes have always smelled like the soap they used at the house, never anything else.

He buttoned up his shirt all the way to the top then draped his tie under his collar. He still didn't know where he was but was obviously in someone's house and they didn't want him dead so that was a plus.

Five balanced himself on the bedside table as he stood up to tuck in his shirt wincing at the bullet wound in his side as well as his bruised ribs. Five paused as he heard steps that were growing louder and louder. Five grabbed for his switchblade on instinct as the door creaked open revealing a woman.

"Your awake," she said to Five with a soft smile 

Five instantly recognized her, she was the one who he borrowed the newspaper from outside of the convenience store. With an even closer look at her, she definitely reminded him of Grace. She was dressed like she was still in the 50s and had a calm atmosphere around her. Her short strawberry blonde hair was loosely tied back in a silk light pink ribbon.

"Oh!" Her eyes wandered down and she looked startled by what she had seen, Five followed her eyes and saw it landed on his hand which was holding the blade. He quickly closed it and placed it back on the small table then looked back at her.

"S-sorry, force of habit," His voice was scratchy and his throat felt like a desert. Five felt his face grow hot with embarrassment, as he let his hands fall back to his side.

She walked a few steps closer and held out what she was holding in her hand towards Five. It was his watch that Five had just now realised was missing from his wrist.

"I put the correct time and date on it, it seems to have gotten scrambled up possibly when you were hurt." Five lifted his hand and carefully grabbed his watch from her. He ran his thumb over the lens but quickly noticed something, the date. It couldn't be right 

"How long have I been out?" Five's voice cracked making him clear his throat so it didn't feel like sandpaper.

"A little bit over a day, you were beaten up badly and lost a good amount of blood." 

Fuck!!

He started to tie his tie as fast as he could then reached over for his other clothes and began slipping them on. He grimaced as he had to lift his arms up which hurt his ribs as he slid on his vest.

"You should probably get some more rest, you were really badly injured……..I don't mind you staying here at all," The woman said to him as he slid on his blazer. Five didn't realise his legs were trembling under him, he went to take a step and go collect his shoes which were on the other side of the bed but collapsed as soon as he put his weight down on his outstretched foot.

Everything spun as he fell to the ground, the aching searing pain from all over his body made his stomach knot up as he swallowed back trying not to puke.

He felt hands fall to his back as well as his arm as he was dragged up and placed on the bed he was previously laying on. His breathing was ragged and he could feel the perspiration gathering on the palm of his hands. Everything felt like he fast-forwarded time, maybe he did he didn't know, no energy meant no powers, and Five certainly didn't have any energy.

He felt his body grow heavy as a cool cloth draped over his body and the woman's hand pushed up his bangs and laid her palm on his forehead. He could feel the outline of a wedding band around her ring finger, she was married, certainly, there was someone else in the house too.

"My name is Ymir…... Ymir Cyprus," the woman said in that still gentle calm tone as she removed her hand from his forehead and sat at the edge of the bed.

Cyprus

Why did that name sound familiar to him?

"Can I ask your name young man?" 

His name

He didn't have a name 

He had a number 

"Five….," He responded to her as she shot a confused glance towards him.

"Five?" 

Five wanted to mentally smack himself,' Of course because everyone is named after a Number, Idiot!' 

Five quickly covered it up, "It's a nickname from my siblings, I hardly even remember my real name, it's rarely used." Five wasn't technically lying but he was lying, he just never chose a name.

"Well nice to meet you Five, is there anyone I can call for you?" she gave him a warm smile and stood up walking over to the small desk in the room where a rotary dial phone was.

He had no one, he was away from his own timeline and it's not like giving her a fake number would work. Five kept quiet till she spoke again, "It's alright if you don't remember the number I can always look in the phone book." 

Five cleared his throat before talking,"That's not the problem, I just….don't have anyone to call."

She lowered her hand from about to dial back to her side and walked back over and sat on the bed again."What about your parents, they must be worried about you, and those siblings you talked about?" 

Crap

"Me and my siblings are all adopted, our father passed and our mother……." Five paused.

He couldn't say 'oh yes my mom is a robot built by my dad'......... Things most certainly won't go well with that sentence.

"Our mother isn't in the picture," Five finished off looking up at Ymir. Again he didn't lie, they all are adopted, Reginald is dead, and Grace was well…...a robot but he couldn't say that.

As soon as Five finished he heard a distant cry of a baby which made Ymir's head turn towards the door. She stood up and walked over to the door and turned around to look at Five before walking out.

"Well, I have dinner on the stove, which you're more than welcomed to stay for, I made more than enough." Five responded with a single nod of his head before she walked out softly closing the door.

When he heard the soft click of the door Five reached into his trousers pocket where he forgot his notebook was. He pulled it out and the whole thing was damaged due to that pond he fell in. The pages were all wavy along with the ink on some of the pages were smeared and illegible.

Five carefully flipped to the page where he had the equations he needed which weren't ruined too bad, but something still didn't look right about it.

Five closed it and laid it on the bedside table where everything else still was aside from Klaus' lighter that now laid in his lap.

He never understood Klaus' powers, he was immortal because the big guy upstairs (who Klaus said actually looked like an old western cowboy) didn't want him. Klaus often joked about this saying he wasn't wanted in heaven or hell.

'Did they actually kill him?' 

Five still never understood how he was able to die in both apocalypses but not from countless drug overdoses.

He didn't know HOW his immortality worked so for all Five knows, he could be dead along with the others, or alive and just watched all his siblings get murdered and he couldn't bring them back.

Five shook his head, he didn't want to think about it either everyone was dead or Klaus was the only one alive still waiting for Five. He hoped none of it was true but at least hoped Klaus was alive if it was.

Five reached to the other side of the bed and grabbed his shoes, slipping them on before carefully pushing himself off the bed to stand up again.

He was glad his legs weren't hurt, maybe his right ankle got twisted a little but there were no injuries to his legs. Sure he couldn't run if he needed to due to the wound in his abdomen but the option was still there.

Five balanced himself first before he began to slowly walk to the door, grabbing onto surfaces or the wall along the way so he wouldn't fall. He turned the doorknob and opened the door revealing a short corridor that had 3 others doors along the way to what looked like the living room.

He walked down the hallway noticing one of the doors had the name "Imogen" spelled out in colorful foam letters while the other two doors were blank. He walked into the living room and could begin to smell the food in the air then turned a corner cautiously into what was the kitchen. It reminded him of Diego and mom whenever they cooked meals then called all the siblings to come eat.

Five immediately noticed Ymir already serving a dish for him as if she knew he would come over here. She looked up and smiled at him then set the dish down in front of a chair and pulled the wooden chair out for him as if saying 'sit'.

Five walked over and carefully sat down holding his left side as he sat. A plate of pasta was set on the table in front of him along with a glass of water. Ymair sat down in the seat opposite from him as he took a small sip of water from his glass.

Five still didn't know how he ended up here and exactly who this lady was other than her name which seemed too familiar to Five.

"How did you find me?" He asked once she had sat down.

She cleared her throat before talking,"I was on my way to work about to open up my cafe when I heard a gunshot come from the alleyway behind the building. An older gentleman and I were about to call the police then we saw two older men walk out unharmed." She paused for a second then continued on with the story.

"The older gentlemen walked away but I went to the alleyway where the gunshot was and you were laying on the floor. I was about to call an ambulance but remembered the previous day you were by yourself and didn't accept anyone's help. I made sure you were alive before bringing you back here." 

Five actually did owe his life to her 

They both stayed quiet for the remainder of the time that they ate until they were both finished. She stood and collected the dishes going over to the sink to wash them. Five carefully stood up from the chair and walked over to an image that was framed hanging up on the wall.

Five realised why her name seemed so familiar

" You're married, is your husband home?" Five had to test if this was what he thought it was. He looked over at her reaction as he asked the question. The expression on her face faltered then went back to normal, "Oh he's away a lot for work it's mostly just me and Imogen here all the time." 

Five looked back to the image on the wall of Ymir, a man and a baby which he was certain was her husband and the baby was Imogen.

The newspaper article from a few months from now he had read when looking for the one of the day Ben had died.

Mother and child beaten to death by abusive husband

The picture on the wall was the one Five saw in the article along with the names Ymir Cyprus and Imogen Charlotte Cyprus. It hadn't occurred to Five till he heard her last name and even then it wasn't his main focus.

Five didn't like this one bit, he was a murderer but even then he had morals for who he killed. She's abused by her husband for who knows how long then beaten to death by him and he kills her daughter. Sure he's killed innocent people for the sake of the timeline but this was far beyond anything he would do. 

Five grimaced he couldn't imagine Vanya, Allison or even Klaus getting into an abusive relationship and him not helping them if he had the chance. Allison he knew would probably leave before anything could happen but Vanya and Klaus were a different story. They both had horrible choices in men from Vanya dating a serial killer to Klaus and letting people treat him however to get drugs or sex.

This almost felt like a cry for help 

And he could help, but at the same time couldn't. He was already messing with the timeline in doing what he was set out to do and wasn't even sure of the consequences.

Saving two more people from dying was sure to fuck up the timeline. Not to mention if he messed with something the Commission would be all over him more than they already were.

"What's his job?" 

I mean he could still know where to go to make his life miserable.

"He works as a traveling business salesman, but even when he's home he's working at the office a lot." Five grinded his teeth together.

And the asshole was obviously cheating on her 

At that moment there was a knock at the front door which caught both of their attention. Five stayed where he was while Ymir dried her hands on a towel and walked to the front door. Five heard a lock click then the opening of the door.

" We're sorry to bother ma'am but have you seen a kid, yey tall dressed in a uniform." That caught Five's attention as he peeked over and saw two people from the commission standing at the door.

How did they know where he was?

He moved back behind the wall as he listened to the conversation,"Oh are you two with the police?" Ymir questioned them.

"Um no we're detectives hired by the boy's family to look for him," one of the commission Hitman lied.

"May we come in and search the premises ma'am?" Fuck, now she's gonna think he's just some runaway kid….again technically not wrong but- That's not the point! 

"Oh, yes just please give me a second to tell my husband, he's down in the shop doing some work.

'Husband?'

"Certainly ma'am take your time." 

Five heard Ymir's footsteps walking to the kitchen then as soon as she saw Five she put a finger over her lips and grabbed his wrist pulling him somewhere. Five dragged behind her slightly due to him being injured but was able to follow where she was taking him. She walked down a section that led off from the kitchen into a walk in Pantry. She pulled him all the way to the back where there were cupboards towards the floor and opened it gesturing Five to go in there.

" You have to trust me on this," she whispered to him. Five nodded his head and got in the cupboard which was big enough that he could sit on his knees without being squished or hunched over. She closed the door behind him, leaving it open the slightest bit so he could look out.

'Why was she helping him?'

He heard her footsteps fade out till there was just muffled conversation that he could barely overhear. A few minutes passed and he heard footsteps get closer and the conversation became more clear.

"This is the pantry," her voice was still very calm, no panic or anything laced in her voice.

Both men walked into the pantry and looked around. One of the men started opening the rest of the cupboards that lined the bottom of the floors as the other started talking to Ymir.

"You haven't noticed any weird or out of ordinary things happening around here?" He questioned as the other man got closer and closer to where Five was.

"I don't believe so, I live in a quiet neighbourhood so hardly anything happens around her." She responded as her glance flickered over to the guy going one by one opening the cupboards.

"Are you sure you haven't seen this kid ma'am?" He pulled out and showed her a medium sized image while the other guy opened the last cupboard that was before the one Five was in.

Five pressed himself all the way to the back and put his hand over his mouth as it would help him not be found. The man reached and put his hand on the handle about to pull it open.

"Oh, could you not touch that one my husband just installed it, the glue is still settling in." She said, still acting unfazed.

The man removed his hand for the handle and walked back over to the other guy who put the photo away, " Everything looks clear here, sorry for troubling you ma'am." 

She smiled at them," Not at all, let me escort you out." 

They walked away and there was silence till he heard the closing of the door followed by a lock clicking. Five felt his shoulders drop from where he didn't realise he was tensing up as the cupboard door opened revealing Ymir.

"They're gone," She helped Five climb out of the cupboard and stand up before walking back into the kitchen where she sat down.

"How did you-?" Five was confused why she helped him and didn't believe their story.

"They were wearing the same thing those two men who shot you in the alleyway were wearing." 

Five didn't know what to say, he didn't know why he was accepting the help from this lady he just met. He only had the rest of today and one day left to find out how to save Ben but things were not going as planned, like always.

" Who are those people?" She asked him as he straightened out his blazer.

He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the shattering of glass.

Both him and Ymir flinched before going over to where the sound was. The window in the living room was shattered everywhere while both men stood outside the window both with guns in hand.

Fuck! 

Five pushed Ymir back into the kitchen as the popping of bullets continued covering up the crying of her baby. Five turned his attention to her,"I trusted you, now you have to trust me on something." She nodded her head at Five as he grabbed a hold of her upper arm blinking them into the room Five saw earlier with the name "Imogen" on it. 

"What did-," Ymir started saying, looking like she was about to puke.

"No time," Five quickly said, interrupting her.

Five almost collapsed to the floor but held himself up on the wall as he held his wound. Five pulled back his hand and saw blood starting to seep through his vest, he must have ripped whatever stitches were holding it closed, open.

He looked over and saw Ymir had grabbed her baby, "Is there anyway out of this place!?" He yelled, still talking over the gunfire. 

She quickly nodded her head, "The attic. There's a fire escape that leads out to the street from the back of the house. It's in the room you were staying in." 

Five nodded his head and pushed open the door making the shooting become louder. He looked back and saw Ymir following him as he made his way down the hallway into the room he had woken up in. He closed the door behind both of them as Ymir pulled down the ladder that led to the attic. 

Five ran over and grabbed all his sibling's things as well as his and shoved them in his pockets before following Ymir up the ladder. She led him over to a window that had a metal ladder going down off the side of the house.

She pushed Five to go down the ladder first, which he did followed by Ymir climbing down the ladder with her baby in her hands which he has no clue how she did that. She pointed towards a metal gate that was surrounding the house which Five now realised was a shophouse.

Five ran a few feet behind Ymir due to the wound which was now completely open as blood soaked through his blazer. She looked back at him and must have noticed. She reached back and grabbed Five's hand which was small compared to her hand which enveloped his. Five normally would have pulled away but he was too drowsy from pain and adrenaline to register what was even happening. Five followed her as she took sharp turns through shops and back alleyways running farther away from the gunfire.

Five looked behind him when the gunshots suddenly came to a stop and noticed one of the guys were hot on their feet ready to shoot. Five yanked Ymir against a wall as a bullet sped by right in front of them Five was surprised it didn't graze either of them. She pulled Five around the corner and pushed him to slip through a small opening between two walls. Five went through the opening but quickly realised she wouldn't be able to fit through it. She passed him her baby and put a finger to her mouth before leaving.

Five pushed himself up against the wall and put a hand over the baby's mouth so she wouldn't make noise but not covering her nose so she could breath. Five peeked out from the side and saw the guys pass right by shouting a string of curses.

"Fuck!" One of the guys shouted, kicking a nearby car tire making the alarm go off.

"Come on, we don't have time let's look somewhere else he probably teleported them who knows where." Five knew the commission would be after them if he tried to mess with the timeline but he didn't know they were gonna send more than 2 hitmen to take him out. Five waited till it got quiet and he could hear the distant wailing of sirens.

Five let himself slide down the wall as the exhaustion took over his body. Everything ached more than before and his lungs burned as he tried to catch his breath.

Five looked down as the baby still in his arms looked up at him with light hazel eyes. Five didn't know what to do or how to handle this situation, left alone with someone's baby. 

He stayed staring at the small child in his arms as she smiled up at him giggling.

"U-um…... hi?" 

'Yes, make conversation with the baby, smart Five!'

"Five!" Five turned to his side and saw Ymir coming over to him and putting her hands out towards him. He passed her, her baby then crawled out of the tight space holding his side. 

She looked at the blood coating his right hand and quickly pulled him over to a nearby building and leaned him against the wall. As soon as he was placed on the wall his feet refused to support him anymore and he collapsed to the ground.

She quickly shrugged off a shawl she had over her shoulders and balled it up pressing it into his side with one hand. Five cringed at the pressure being applied to the wound and looked us noticing the worried expression on Ymir's face.

"You, young man, have a lot of explaining to do" She said it much like if it were Diego or Allison lecturing him like a kid.

"It's a long story," Five muttered trying to dodge having to do any explaining. She applied more pressure making Five wince.

"Then start talking" 

Five looked at her stern glare then the wound that guaranteed he wouldn't be able to jump anytime soon. 

This was gonna be a lot of explaining to do

Shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shophouse- A place that doubles as a shop or restraunt and the person's house.( House is usually on top of the shop or restraunt) 
> 
> Are you guys liking Ymir? Huh *nudge, nudge* 
> 
> Also this is another attempt of me writing a long chapter, it's about 9,500 words. Slowly there getting easier and easier to write.
> 
> I was originally gonna split it into two chapters after the 2nd little break segment but decided not to.......if you guys think it works better as one chapter or if it would would better as two chapters, plz let me know.
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE DOWN BELOW PLZ READ
> 
> I wanted to touch on what Five is thinking during the part where he's talking about Allison, Vanya and Klaus and if they were in a abusive relationship...... I names those three specifically because one Vanya and Allison are his sisters and of course the brother's are most likely more protective over them...... Then I named Klaus because in the comics he's seen hooking up with people and being used for certain things as long as he gets drugs........I want to make it clear that men can be in an abusive relationship too with a female......but the reason I didn't name Diego, Luther and/or Ben is because Luther has never been in a relationship so Five doesn't know how he would be, and Diego he knows that he had a healthy relationship with Eudora, and of course Ben has never been in a relationship either.....Allison was married and again in the comics it shows Patrick isn't very nice to her, Vanya in the show with Leonard he was just using her and then Klaus I already said what happened in the comics........I just wanted to make it clear why I used those 3 as an example and not the 3 other brother's......Thank you for reading this small paragraph, because this really is an important note to talk on.
> 
> ~~~~~VirusError🌸


	6. Hurt And Grief But Don't Suffer Alone Engage With The Pain As A Motive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from- Achilles, come down by Gang of youths 
> 
> I wrote a majority of this when I put on an old playlist to listen too and I ended up having tongue twister by Cash Cash on repeat for about an hour.....I don't know, Don't ask XDXDXD
> 
> Also Wow, this took me a hot minute to write, I had some serious writer's block because I rearranged some events that were gonna happen and made it so there are foreshadowing and all that good writing stuff. But wow it made it a bit harder to write for me but I still enjoyed it very much.
> 
> SPOILERS: For the comic books (once again) more specifically for the short side story "Anywhere But Here" and as always if you wanna read it plz do before reading this chapter and if you have no interest in the comics please read and enjoy~~~~ 
> 
> **IMPORTANT NOTE AT END OF STORY PLZ READ**

Five (POV) 

Five started with the whole "7 superhero children who were adopted by an eccentric billionaire and raised together for the purpose to save the world."

Ymir stayed quiet the whole time mostly just focused on getting his wound to stop bleeding as he explained the unimaginable.

"Just imagine me with a black and white mask and jumpsuit." Five said now feeling slightly more lightheaded than before.

"So you're one of those Umbrella kids in the newspapers?" 

Five adjusted himself and pulled up his sleeve revealing his tattoo on his wrist, "We were all numbered 1 through 7 and those were our names…. Hence why my name is Five." 

"But your siblings all have names and you guys also have code names?" She said to Five making sure she got it right.

Five nodded his head, "Number Four's name is Klaus but his code name is 00.04 and is known by the public as The Séance; due to him practically being a human Ouija board."

She moved her hand behind his back and helped him stand up, putting most of his weight against the wall. 

"So why don't you have a normal name?" 

Five adjusted his weight to his right side and leaned his arm on the wall, "I just never wanted a name really, we were always just numbers, never anything more." 

She sighed and glanced down at his wound, "We can go to the cafe under the house and I have a first aid kit in the backroom to patch you up." She looked towards where the sound of the sirens was coming from.

"We can sneak through the back door so we're not seen." She turned back around to Five who nodded his head at her. Her baby during all this had fallen asleep with the explaining of his atypical life.

She led the way as Five followed closely behind leaning on any wall he could be near for support. She led him through twists and turns of the back alley that made Five with his concussed brain confused about where they were.

The already setting sun made it hard to see exactly where she was going, even with the street lights flickering on it was still hard to make out her silhouette. The distant sirens were becoming louder and louder as they continued to walk, the piercing noise making his head throb worse.

He didn't notice when Ymir stopped and was looking back at him. He looked slightly down and saw her hand extended out towards him with her palm up. He knew what she wanted him to do… yet a part of him wanted to reject her offer. The last time he held onto somebody was when he brought all his siblings back to their timeline.

Slowly he lifted his hand and laid it in her palm, she held his hand as you would with a child when crossing a busy street. Her hand was warm and held onto his smaller hand almost like she was protective of him.

He came to a sudden halt when he ran into her, not noticing she had stopped walking. She gave him a concerned glance then moved her attention back over to what she was looking at.

"That thing you did earlier…..that's your power?" She whispered to him but her attention was still drawn to around the corner.

"Those are called spatial jumps or blinking as my siblings like to call it, I can teleport anywhere I want if my powers aren't depleted…… it's also how I got here." This really was a lot of explaining to do.

"Why didn't you try to leave before?" 

Five swallowed and looked down, he didn't try to leave at any point, he felt like he could trust her for some reason. She had this parental feel to her and treated him like Diego and Allison treated him, despite him constantly reminding them he isn't a child. She reminded him of his siblings and where they were that was always home, never the mansion and all the cold memories it held but the 6 other people who he called his siblings even though they were all adopted.

Five didn't answer her question but instead leaned over and saw what she was staring at. Some police officers were already at the scene checking out the front of the shophouse, some going up the spiraling staircase that connected on the outside up to the front door of the house on top. The bottom part that was the shop was gated closed and had all the doors locked and lights off along with a sign that hung from the doorknob with the word 'closed' painted on it.

"We need to get in that door at the back," she pointed towards a door encased within the black gate they had run out of earlier. Five knew he could probably blink them to the area but it was risking it with the flash of blue it would create attracting all the officers.

Five hated cops, the only exception was Diego of course and his lady cop friend that helped out Diego. Their constant scrounging in the Umbrella Academy's business always made things extra hard for them. Five looked and saw no way of both of them getting over there without getting caught.

Five heard a gasp as Ymir pushed Five against a wall as well as herself against the wall too. Five could see from the corner of his eye two beams of lights getting closer to the place as he could hear the sound of gravel crunching underneath car tires. 

'Who was there?'

Five heard the slam of a car door then a man's voice asking questions to the officers. Ymir peaked over the corner of the wall before suddenly whispering, "Now." 

She pulled at his hand as he ran behind her towards the black gate. He turned and saw all the officers turned away and talking to a man in a business suit standing in front of an old beat-up mustang.

'The Husband'

She let go of his hand when they reached the gate and opened it letting Five in first before quietly closing it back up. She reached into a broken lamp that was hanging on the wall outside the back door and pulled out a key, sticking it into the lock and opening the door. Once again she pushed Five in first before stepping in and locking the door behind her. 

It was completely pitch black aside from a digital clock that shone out brightly. The numbers 8:05 made Five realise how much time he had left to figure all this out to save Ben.

He blinked his eyes a couple of times as the whole place was illuminated revealing what looked like a backroom. Cots with blankets and pillows along with other chairs or bean bags were shoved into one corner of the room. The other side had a collection of cardboard boxes along with what looked similar to how their kitchen looked. A small fridge with a marble counter and cupboards stood against the wall that held another door which Five guessed went out to the main restaurant area.

There was another spiral staircase in the middle of the room that led up to a pull-down door. Ymir quickly went up the staircase and clipped the lock closed that was dangling from the handle. 

Five saw her move over towards a cot covered in blankets and laid the baby down. She rushed over towards a cabinet pulling out a red box with the words 'first aid' printed on the top and walking over to Five.

She patted the flat counter, "hop up here." Five moved towards the counter but realised how tall it really was as it came up to almost his shoulders. 

'Stupid 13-year-old body'

He saw a small smile creep up on Ymir's face as she moved a box over for him to step on. Five stepped up on the box and slid himself onto the counter, disposing of the blood-covered shawl, and shrugged off his blazer and vest. He would have to remember to scrub the blood out of all his clothes later.

Ymir motioned for him to lay down as he unbuttoned the very bottom buttons of his shirt and pulled his (once) white undershirt up just enough. 

Five immediately wanted to close his eyes as his head hit the cool counter. His head was pounding and the throbbing feeling every time he breathed reminded him of his bruised ribs. Five let his eyes close for a second too long when a burning pain on his left where the wound was made him cry out. She was cleaning off the wound and mumbling something that Five couldn't make out as everything blurred. 

"....ive."

"...H…..Ive," He tried to open his eyes at hearing something but failed and let them fall closed.

"Hey…..Five," the pain had subsided a little bit as he finally opened his eyes looking in front of him.

"Hey you need to stay awake sweetheart, does your head hurt?" 'Sweetheart', the endearment word made him want to laugh at the time Diego tried to get away with calling him that, but Five grabbed the closest thing to him (which happened to be a pair of heels that either belonged to Allison or Klaus) and chucked them at Diego. 

He already missed them from what little time he was already gone. He didn't know if it was because of how delirious of the amount of pain he was in or his 13-year-old emotions taking over, but he felt like crying. He missed his siblings, he missed waking up in the morning to Diego making breakfast for everyone, Klaus' antics and rambling that never stopped, Vanya and her violin playing when she stayed over at the academy, Allison and her mother henning of the siblings, and even Luther and his grouchy attitude.

The thought didn't dawn on him that, that all was gone. Everything hit him at once and he never got a chance to process it all like usual. His siblings were dead, he had Diego's knife and Klaus' lighter in his pocket, they were gone and it was his fault.

Five felt the tears well up in his eyes as he tried to blink them away, swallowing past the lump in his throat as he nodded his head at Ymir's question. Eyes peered down at him with sympathy as he tried to look away from her glare, with his tears now streaming down his face. 

He saw her with a needle and thread ready in one hand, probably to stitch the wound shut but she looked hesitant as Five brought his hands up to his face to wipe away the tears.

She carefully placed a hand on his shoulder, "I don't have any anesthetic on hand so this is gonna hurt a lot…… Ready?" 

A nod of his head started the familiar pain of a needle piercing his skin threading and a thread pulling through it multiple times. He grimaced and winced at the action but he knew his tears were for something more than physical pain.

Five heard a pair of shears open and snap shut as the thread was knotted off and a white bandage was set in place. He pushed himself up so he was sitting, letting his now blood-stained white undershirt fall back down. He turned his head into the upper part of his sleeve, wiping the remaining tears collected in his eyes.

Silence filled the room as he buttoned up and tucked back in his shirt, grabbing his blazer and vest slipping them back over his head. He wanted to just save Ben and go home, two simple tasks yet they proved to be the most difficult.

"Where did you learn to do this?" He asked Ymir at seeing her perfect stitching compared to his that he'd done in the past. 

She sat down in a chair, "My grandmother was a war nurse back in World War 1 and the Korean war, after World War One she had my mother but shortly after when she went out into the Korean war she was shot and killed. My mother followed after her and did the same in Vietnam but couldn't handle it anymore with so many young kids dying right in front of her. When I was born she taught me everything she knew." 

Five remembered Klaus talking about Vietnam before but he never really got the details or bothered to ask him, "Why didn't you do the same?" 

She quickly turned towards Five and let her expression soften a bit, "I was almost finished with nursing school when I met my husband and we both adopted a little boy. I had planned to finish and go into the nursing field but I got a call one day, my mother had passed away in a plane crash. After that, I used up all my savings and opened this cafe, a couple of years passed and I was considering going back to the medical field then I got pregnant December year before last……. We were all ecstatic to have another part of the family." 

She stood up from the chair, straightening out her dress, and started rummaging through some boxes, "Five months into the pregnancy we found out it was a girl, and Pascal; our little boy who actually was about your age was so excited to be a big brother." 

Five stepped down on the box and got down on the floor as he looked around, now taking in the whole area of where he was at.

"A week later he went into complete lung failure due to an infection in his port and was put into a medically induced coma." Five immediately stopped in his tracks and turned towards Ymir now listening more carefully than before.

"He had Cystic Fibrosis so he never had long but we never expected that to happen at that moment. A month passed and he never woke up, we chose to take him off the ventilator. After that everything went downhill, I don't think I ever want to do anything medical again." Five heard her chuckle on the last part but could still hear how her voice wavered through it all. 

He wasn't good with comfort or dealing with others emotions that he himself could barely understand. They were never raised to be compassionate people or care about others but rather just save the world and be the best. He didn't know exactly what this disease was either so he had no way of knowing what exactly she meant entirely.

"Enough about me though…… you said you and your siblings are all the same age yet, not trying to be rude, you don't particularly look or act 16." He really should have started with the whole 58-year-old in a 13-year-olds body that is supposed to be 29 but time travel just likes to fuck things up………. Oh well

"I'm actually 13- well mentally and physically 13, I have the experience and conscious of a 58-year-old." She raised her eyebrow with a confused look on her face at him.

"Um... the time travel thing I told you I could do, the actual timeline right now it's 2019 and my siblings are all 29….. I time-traveled when I was 13 back in 2002 to the future which happened to be April 1st of 2019." Five paused and leaned up against a wall.

'This made zero sense' 

"That day the Apocalypse happened where I remained the next 45 years give or take," Yup just keep going at least one thing will make sense.

"Eventually I was able to time travel back to March 24 of 2019 but because of the whole time and space continuum, I ended back up in my 13-year-old self again." Should he mention the 60s? Probably not.

"We had to divert the apocalypse twice but then we were able to return back to our timeline April 2nd the day after the apocalypse." He looked up at her expecting her to think he was crazy but instead, she looked serious.

"Okay, so how did you end up here in 2006?" She questioned him.

'Ah right'

"A couple of days ago I time-traveled from 2019 back 13 years because in….," Five looked down and checked the time on his watch.

8:40

"A day and 3 hours give or take one of my brothers die and I want to prevent that." 

Another minute of silence filled the air as Five readjusted his weight onto his right side off of the fresh wound and stitches. He needed a plan of some sort and he needed to act on it soon and fast. So many things were racing through his head at having about a day to save his brother and figure out exactly how to do just that.

Ymir walked over to a door with no doorknob and pushed it open. Five trailed after her to reveal the rest of the small cafe. Small tables with two chairs on each side were placed at the corners of the cafe while much bigger tables and booths were either pushed to the walls or arranged simplistically. Metals shutters covered the see-through laminated glass walls most businesses had letting small streams of light occasionally peak through. Even with nothing being made the lingering smell of coffee and baked goods tinged the air as he followed her over to what looked like the kitchen.

They both stopped in front of a rather small door almost like something out of Alice In Wonderland while he saw her pull a ring of keys off of a nearby hook. A small bronze key was pressed between her fingers as she inserted the piece of copper into the lock turning it till there was a click.

She pushed it open and stepped back, "There's a spiral staircase in there that goes up the side of the shop and the house up to the roof in case we need to get out." She hung the keys back up but kept the door unlocked letting it close so it wasn't hanging open. 

'Why were there so many secret compartments in this place!?' 

They both looked up as they heard heavy footsteps followed by knocking on the house above them. Ymir put her finger over her lips and pointed back over to the door that they had both just came out of. Five walked back over to the door holding it so it didn't make noise as it swung shut until Ymir walked through and did the same, softly closing it.

His powers were useless at this point; he was too weak and had no energy, he just had to rely on running and walking like normal people. He knew Ymir wouldn't let him out of her sight so he already had to find a way to escape without her noticing.

Ymir led him over to other cots and blankets and pillows that were all on one side of the room with Imogen (the baby) asleep in one.

Five sit on the edge of one of them as Ymir stared down at her baby, "That man… was he your husband?" 

Her eyebrows creased at the mention of him as she pursed her lips before nodding her head at him. He knew it was her husband but saying that right out of the bat without any prior knowledge other than what she told him was sure to freak her out. 

"Why didn't you go to him and let him know you're okay?" He was pushing it but he still couldn't tell her that the same man she was married to ends up killing her and her baby. Her warm smile that was present the whole time slowly disappeared as the words left his mouth.

"It's…. A lot to explain," the hold back on her words was made apparent. Five didn't question it any further as she sat down on the cot in the middle of Him and her baby. 

"We can stay in here tonight… my husband never comes down here to the cafe and even then he doesn't have any of the keys to the doors." She started laying out blankets on the cot and grabbed some laying them next to Five.

He couldn't stay here, he knew that yet the still occurring thought of her situation made Five uneasy. Five scooted back on the cot, pulling his feet up and crossing them in front of him. 

Finally having a moment to take everything in he realized how itchy his cheeks were probably from dried tears that he didn't wipe away. His clothes reeked of blood and sweat which smelled all too familiar. Everything was calm and these small movements made him feel and process all that had happened.

His head throbbed and so did the rest of his body, as the thought of how many injuries his body had sustained over the small period. His head felt like it had been tumbling around in the dryer for some time, while he knew for a fact his ribs probably looked like an artist pallet with blacks, blues, purples, and reds.

The room had a crisp chill to it Five never took note of before as he looked at the blankets neatly folded up next to him. The top one looked to be some sort of embroidered quilt with different flower patterns all stitched into it creating multiple bouquets on the quilt. While the other blankets piled under were plainer and of a single color.

Across the room, there was a set of four lockers pushed opposite of the small fridge and cupboards. An awning window laid on top of the lockers that looked to be unlocked. Boxes surrounded the lockers like nobody had used them for quite some time.

Five knew he would be able to fit through the small window and not make much noise to possibly escape. Compared to the other way Ymir showed him to get to the roof, he didn't know the layout of the house and for all he knew there would be no ladder up there to get down.

He had to pretend to be asleep until she herself went to sleep, from there he could get out. Five looked up at Ymir and saw her just sitting on the cot with blankets she laid out, looking over her baby. Five turned and noticed close to her was a little boy in a picture frame, it wasn't there before she must have grabbed it from the boxes when she was rummaging.

The fact that he looked about 13, maybe older, and his jet black hair and eyes all made it apparent that this was the little boy she was talking about. Five wanted to question why something like that was shoved into a cardboard box to be forgotten.

The boy had pink highlights on the tips of his hair mostly on the bangs that curled up and hung down over the right side of his face. In the picture, he had his thumb up while holding a device of some sort in his mouth. A purple bulky looking vest was strapped around him like if he was going to go swim out in the sea. The only thing Five recognized was a nasal cannula that sat on the boy's face while the tubing wrapped in front of him off the frame of the picture.

"Is that your son," Five gestured over to the picture frame as he bent down to pull his shoes off, leaving him in his black knee-highs.

"Pascal, yeah that's him." He saw a smile return onto her face at the mention of him. She moved over and reached for the frame looking at it in her hands for a couple of seconds before offering it to Five. 

Five took it in his hand and got a closer look at it. In the vest, some tubes came out and connected to a machine, while so were the other two things he was holding or connected to. The piece in his mouth had a clear tube going to a smaller machine that laid on the table in front of him. The oxygen was connected to a large blue machine in the background of the photo, while there was something else hanging out from over the vest with a clamp of some sort on it.

With all the tubes wrapped around him, he was still smiling into the camera of whoever had taken the photo.

"All the wires and tubes and everything is just his treatments to keep his lungs clear as possible," Ymir commented as Five handed back over the frame.

"So... it's a lung condition?" He really has never heard of what he had so this was new to Five.

"You could say that, but it's a gene mutation that causes all the mucus in your body to become really thick and sticky….which causes of course the breathing problems and many other things." She set the picture frame back down next to her as she laid down on the cot.

Five shrugged off his blazer and hung it on the end of the cot, but kept his vest and other things on. If he was gonna have to make a run for it he only needed to grab his shoes and blazer and not have to get fully dressed. Ymir's back was to him from the cot a few feet as he slid off his watch and faced it towards him.

9:17

Five struggled to keep his eyes open as the night passed and turned to the next day when the time ticked 12. Five grabbed his watch in his hand and sat up slowly so as to not make any noise. Sliding his blazer on he stood up and walked over to Ymir, peeking over and making sure she was asleep which she was. Five walked back over and grabbed his shoes and opted to just carry them as they would probably make noise. 

He began making his way over to the boxes and lockers to climb up on to get to the window. Reaching up on his tippy-toes he slid his shoes on the top of the lockers and jumped on the first box looking back over making sure Ymir was still asleep. Crawling up on the next two boxes Five reached up and pulled himself up on top of the metal lockers. He grabbed his shoes and unhooked the latch from the bottom of the window pushing it open as far as it would go.

Five turned around where Ymir and her baby still laid asleep completely unaware of what was going on.

"I'm sorry," Five whispered to no one but himself as he put his feet first through the window and climbed through it. 

Five tumbled to the ground outside the cafe, immediately remembering the stitches he had in his side as he hit the floor. He groaned as he pushed himself up trying not to make noise as the window was still opened. Slipping his shoes back on he looked around the area finally assessing it all.

He had no time or direction as to where the people who are planning to cause trouble for his siblings or to find them. He needed to get back to the academy and his only choice was to prevent them from ever leaving. Yes, it would mean waiting around for something to happen which method he wasn't very fond of. But if it allowed him to save Ben that's what he was willing to do.

Five found his way through the back alleys that he had gone through when he had gotten shot which originally started at the academy. He had to go the same way he got here, the same way back and it allowed him to stay out of sight.

Using the walls for support he made his way through all the twists and turns until he once again stood across from the Academy. The normal residence of the Umbrella Academy stood in front of him yet something unfamiliar stuck out to Five.

Diego was outside probably on patrol duty which Five definitely remembered often having to do double shifts if he or the others misbehaved. What caught his attention was who came out the front doors of the Academy as they were almost unrecognizable. With a duffle bag slung over their shoulder and what looked to be a guitar case of some sort in hand, they walked over to Diego.

Five quickly scrambled behind a post box that was nearby hoping the two didn't see him as he continued to peak over.

The short black hair and black leather outfit made Five immediately think it was Klaus but found the height and frame for the person too petite for it to be their lengthy brother. They stopped in front of Diego and brought a hand up to remove the pair of sunglasses they had on despite it being night.

"You are gonna ditch patrol right?" The voice shocked Five as it was the same one he had heard when inside the Academy a few days ago.

Vanya?!

The short jet-black hair had completely slipped past Five when he first saw her. Having mostly just caught glimpses of it more than actually looking at it long enough to process.

The makeup and outfit made her almost unrecognizable to Five compared to the academy pyjamas he saw her in previously.

"I already told you, I'll meet you downtown at Spider's, then we take the cash and leave this place behind in the dust." The way Diego referred to the Academy and talked, Five once again didn't understand what he was talking about.

"Got it, don't be late this time hot-head." The nickname for Diego made Five snicker to himself a bit as Vanya started walking down the street away from the Academy. Five was curious about what they were both doing but knowing Diego was gonna be there later on, Five started to follow Vanya.

She quickly walked down the road and caught a taxi, throwing her luggage in first before hopping in the car. Five curled his hands into fists letting the familiar blue aura surround them as he blinked into a nearby taxi. Five fell lopsided in the back seat rather than in the passenger seat which he was aiming for, as that assured him not to use his powers anymore.

The guy freaked out and started rummaging through his glove compartment before Five reached into his pocket and pulled out his switchblade on him.

Pressing it to his the guy stopped moving, "follow that car or you'd be wishing you took the day shift." He placed his hands on the wheel as he began to follow closely behind the taxi Vanya was in.

Five glanced down at his watch as both cars came to a stop across from what looked like a nightclub. Five flicked the blade closed as he stepped out of the car and smiled at the man, "pleasure doing business with you." 

The car quickly sped away while he turned his attention back towards where Vanya had just gone. He kept his distance behind her until she entered the club, Five wouldn't be able to get in there. Rounding the building Five caught sight of multiple people all with instruments or dressed up in a certain way. Vanya came out of a door as she met up with what looked like a chimp almost like Pogo. She quickly unpacked the instrument and started tuning it up while the other chimp drummed out a beat on the nearby wall with his drumsticks.

"Where's that brother of yours?" The chimp asked Vanya while Five tried to get closer to hear what they were saying over the loud music in the club.

"Don't worry, Body he'll be here." As Vanya said that a roar of cheering was heard inside followed by 4 guys coming through the door drenched in sweat and covered in black makeup head to toe.

A tall well-built guy walked through the door and approached the two Five was watching, "Prime 8's you guys are up in 30, get your gear on stage while the crowd is still hyped." 

'Prime 8's?' 

Both of them began grabbing wrapped up cables, amps, and Vanya grabbed her guitar as they went through the door everyone was coming in and out of.

'Vanya and Diego were in a band together?'

Five knew Diego was the one who did ever treat Vanya like she wasn't one of Klaus' ghosts but rather their sister….. But no one ever told him they were in a band together. Five couldn't even remember if he read this in Vanya's book either as it seemed this whole part she skipped over mostly cutting to the chase of Ben's death.

Five continued to watch as they both finished setting up and continued to wait in this backstage area. Vanya started to pace the area as she kept frantically checking the clock that was on the wall.

'Prime 8's!!!'  
'Prime 8's!!!'  
'Prime 8's!!!'

Five could hear the chanting of the crowd getting louder as the 30 minutes came and went. The same guy from before walked over to both of them looking quite frustrated, "You guys are on, where's The Kraken?" 

"He'll be here I promise, Spider just give him a couple of minutes," Vanya pleaded to who Five now knew was 'Spider'.

"You got 10 minutes for him to show up till I throw The Azmatics on stage." Five had a hunch that Diego wasn't coming but he didn't understand why as it seemed he actually meant what he said to Vanya.

He saw Vanya walk over to a payphone on the wall and dialed a series of numbers into it. She tapped her foot for a while before taking the phone away from her ear and slamming it back down on the receiver. Her pacing and the way she held herself definitely reminded Five that this was the same Vanya from when they were 13 and currently 29.

A minute ticked by as she reached into her pocket, popped the top of a small colored bottle, and swallow the pills dry. He wanted to reach out and tell her to stop popping what she thought was anxiety medication like candy. The rest of the minutes flew by as the crowd got louder, most likely getting impatient and some of the other bands started complaining. Yet there still was no sign of Diego as the tall man, Spider marched out the door towards Vanya.

"You and your band are lucky I even gave you a chance, now go get your gear off my stage before I let it get trashed, you're wasting my time." 

"Most of the people in there bought those tickets because we were performing, not because they wanted to see any of these other opening bands," Vanya yelled at the very much taller and buff guy in front of her.

"After what happened last week with your psycho brother, you probably both don't belong here." The buff man snarled at Vanya as he turned back around to the doors.

Vanya turned around and faced the chimp whose name was Body, "5 minutes Body, he probably just got caught up in something." The next band up started collecting their stuff running past Vanya as the chimp began to pull on a jacket.

"He might be right Vanya, you're good on that guitar you can find others to play with. But that hot-headed brother of yours can't even show up for a gig on time…… I'm sorry Vanya but the Prime-8's are through." He walked out the door, to get to the stage and collect the items. Vanya hurriedly collected her guitar and duffle bag before starting to walk away from the club.

'Shit!' 

Five ran around the corner and hid in the crowd of people as Vanya started to walk down the street both things in tow. Taking random turns and twists it seemed she was just wasting time rather than going somewhere. Vanya reached into her pocket taking out a cigarette and lighting it she leaned up against a store window with the news broadcasting. Five stayed behind a far distance but close enough to hear what was going on.

"The Horror and The Sèance of The Umbrella Academy are injured in an encounter with a gang in their hideout. Then The Rumour and Spaceboy were subdued….all hope was lost until The Kraken came to the rescue saving everyone and knocking out the leader of the gang…" 

'They were called on a mission' 

Five almost questioned whether he should have stayed at the Academy to see what exactly happened. He heard a scoff from Vanya as she threw the cigarette on the ground, putting it out before walking off down the road. She stopped at a crosswalk and hailed a taxi.

Five got closer as the taxi came to a stop and she threw her belongings into the back seat, "To the airport please, if you step on it there's 40 bucks in it for you." 

'Vanya was...leaving?' 

She was leaving the day before their brother died. Why was none of this in her book, why had no one told him any of this!?

Vanya slammed the taxi door closed and it sped away from where Five stood, confused, still injured, and feeling things he wasn't completely sure what they were.

He looked down at his watch and it told him it was already 2:40 in the morning. The streets had begun to die down as the time got closer to 3 leaving Five still standing where Vanya had just left. It was technically already the last day before everything was bound to happen. 

He had screwed up too many times to count already from leaving his own timeline in the first place to getting caught in a trap set just for him. He was lost in his head, and with tears already had been shed he wanted everything to just be a bad dream.

A night terror he would be screaming bloody murder from, completely unaware of his siblings' attempts to comfort him until he fell back asleep and didn't remember any of it in the morning.

Asleep in his bed, clothed in his academy pyjamas probably with Diego or Allison sitting at the edge of his bed with worry painted on their face. Then breakfast would be made as all 5 other siblings clomped down the stairs with Diego already in the kitchen being very much motherly (although would never admit it) and making the siblings whatever they desired.

Yet here he was standing, wasting time and being absolutely useless. He was mocked by Klaus for having an obsession with the apocalypse, but maybe he was just addicted to making sure his family wasn't hurt or even injured. Every time someone almost died or did die he reversed time and prevented it in one way or another never allowing them to pass away…….to leave him.

In a way, he was being selfish, yet he was given powers to manipulate time as he chose. He wasn't even sure if he would be able to properly cope with any of their deaths without being tempted to fuck with the timeline.

Five began to walk in a familiar direction but not the Academy. The stitches pulled every step he took causing him more pain as he was sure they would break open again if he didn't stop running around aggravating the wound. His unreasonable anger distracted him from the pain as he pushed himself to walk faster away from the area the taxi had sped away from moments ago.

He didn't understand why he was angry, he knew all the events surrounding everything with Ben's death were kept under lock and keep by his siblings. But he didn't know so many things happened that even the world didn't from what Vanya wrote so many years later that tore the siblings even farther apart.

Reading that stupid book was all Five had of a memory of his siblings when every living thing was dead and humanity was wiped out. He thought he had a piece of his childhood back from that book after missing 16 years of it. But apparently, he couldn't even have that as most of it seemed to be based on a lie like Allison's rumours.

Five didn't notice his nails digging into the fleshy part of his palm until he kicked a nearby trash can, running his hands over his face. He needed to be saving Ben not worrying about everything else, yet it seemed like everything was hopeless. He started to walk which quickly progressed into a full-on sprint. Every inch of his body screamed at his actions yet his mind felt it was just right. 

He could feel blisters starting to form on the soles of his feet as they rubbed up against dress shoes which were not made for running. Yet he continued to run as every breath grew harder to take. The deep breaths quickly turned to sobs as he kept running, choking on his tears. He knew not to fuck with the timeline yet here he was in 2006 alone and finding out secrets he now knew why his family hid from him. All his emotions were getting tangled up like earbuds forgotten in someone's pocket or backpack. 

So

He ran and ran and ran till he couldn't anymore. His watch eventually struck 4 then 5 then 6 and so on and so forth. The birds chirped as the moon switched with the sun as life bounced back to the streets. Yet somewhere tucked behind an old building The smallest Hargreeves laid there passed out, lifeless and unconscious…..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhhh😭😭 i'm gonna cry 
> 
> 1\. About Pascal and passing away due to Cystic Fibrosis ( also I wanna touch on this and say I took his story from the amazing Claire Wineland of how she ended up in a coma that lasted 2 weeks, but with this I changed up the story so it could fit this character)
> 
> (RIP The Beautiful Claire Wineland 💜💜💜)
> 
> &2\. Five realising Vanya left
> 
> Also if you guys notice I'm not specifying the month or date as it has never been confirmed only the year and how old they were when it happened....but I think this happened sometime before their 17th birthday (so before October 1st) because he died when they were 16 yet it happened in 2006 and they were born 1989 so if you do the math if it happened after October 1st of 2006 they would all be 17 but they clearly say it happened when they were 16 so they haven't yet turned 17 just yet........so you guys can imagine anytime before October for this to take place but again I do not specify the month or date.
> 
> ACTUAL IMPORTANT MESSAGE AND NOT JUST MY RAMBLING DOWN BELOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> IM WRITING A HOLLIDAY/CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 
> 
> YAAAAY It's going to be in the same universe as this book (like same events that happening and everything) and It will go up on December 6th...... The topic is 12 days of Christmas but with the Hargreeves pretty much. So there will be 12 chapters ( maybe 1 special chapter too) 
> 
> The dilemma I have is, as you guys know this is part of my series that im writing and this book ( The Rain Before The Rainbow) is part 1 out of possibly 10 plus parts I have planned out. By this time I was already expecting to have part 2 or 3 out but I ended making the chapters longer and more detailed then expected..........sooooooooo the holliday special does have spoilers written in it for this book part 1 as well as other parts that follow it........the holliday special was planned to be part number 4 or 5 in the series so yes there is A LOT that is missed but.........I worked really REALLY hard on it and wanted to share it with everyone......If you choose not to read it I completely understand I'm planning by maybe January to have this book /part 1 complete where I will began on part 2 and so on..
> 
> Again thank you for reading this lengthy thing as this is an important note.
> 
> ~~~~~~VirusError🌸


	7. If I'd Stay Up With You At Night, Had I'd Known How to Save A Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from- How to save a life by The Fray 
> 
> I CAN DO ITALICS NOW!!!!!!!
> 
> Okay that's not the message I wanted to come back with but you know over my little break I took from writing my fanfiction I figured out how to fix the formatting and stuff soooooo now I can add all that snazzy stuffs yay!
> 
> But more importantly Thank you, everyone, for being patient and all the amazing kind messages in the comments make my day. My health kinda went haywire (like usual) so I had to work on staying out of the hospital because I am part of the at risk community when it comes to this virus (haha Virus get it because my name is VirusError...I'm so sorry for the bad pun) going around. But two almost hospital visits and practically two months later I am okay again!!!!!!!
> 
> Well until I go into another flare BUT I am a okay to write fanfiction!!! 
> 
> Again thank you for everyone's patience but I will be back to uploading once again😊😊
> 
> Also it's a short sweet chapter today then next update you guys can see what shenanigans Five is back up too.(but also as you guys can tell It's a non-linear plot so that's why it's jumping back and forth between what's going on with the siblings and then the main story with Five...but in a few chapters it will all make sense I promise!!)
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING- There is a scene that made me uncomfortable writing having to do with a creepy older guy being gross so please know your limits and be safe when it comes to reading fanfiction or any literature gor that matter ❤

Klaus/Diego(POV)

A month 

31 days

And Five still hadn't came back 

Everyone blamed themselves for what had happened.

Especially himself, he had lied to the others and to Five about Ben, yet he still hadn't come forth to everyone. Diego never brought the topic up to him again knowing what had happened that night with both brother's cuddled up in one another.

"You know this would be the last thing he would want you to be doing Klaus," Ben hovered over him as he threw back what might've been his 9th shot of whiskey.

"Shut up, Ben," He tried pulling his coat further over his head to block out his ghost brother but with no prevail. He finally caved in to talking to his brother he had been trying to ignore the whole day

"Come on Klaus, 3 weeks down the drain everyone's worried about Five but you can't stay intoxicated until he comes back." 

"Watch me," his words were beginning to slur as he tried to order another shot. Klaus raised the shot glass and signaled to the bartender as he slammed the glass back on the bar, black lipstick smeared where he had drank from.

"No can do Klaus, that was your last call, cut off time already so you get water," the bartender knew him personally much like his friend whom was a paramedic.

"Is it at least flavored water," he asked as the glass was placed in front of him.

"I can make you a non-alcoholic drink if you prefer that to water," he was leaning against the counter talking to Klaus. It was a slow night and already 1am. 

"When do I do non-alcoholic, Matt?" Klaus joked as he laid his head down on his arms.

Matt shook his head at Klaus, "is someone coming to pick you up? Brother, sister, girlfriend, boyfriend if you have one yet." 

"He's right Klaus you can't walk home all fucked up like that, at least let him call Diego for you," Ben's voice was laced with desperation to his older brother.

"No one's coming, just me, Myself, and I tonight, Matty," Klaus was given a questioning glance from the bartender as he took a drink of his water.

"You sure, I practically have your brother's number memorized. I can call him for you." Klaus frantically shook his head, "he's gonna be mad at me." Words he would never say slipped out due to his nine plus whiskey shots he drank minutes ago.

"Klaus, Di is never mad at you as long as he knows you're safe," Ben's words passed right over Klaus as the séance ignored him.

"He usually seems almost relieved whenever he walks in here to take you home, seems like a good big brother." 

Klaus smiled to himself, Diego was a good brother he couldn't deny that. But for him he never considered himself a good brother in return. More often than not he felt more like a failure compared to everyone or a bother than an actual brother. He was always just the druggie or junkie brother who could see the dead.

"He is, just I never told anyone I was going out so they're probably all frantically looking for me like ants when they lose their line." Matt laughed at Klaus' comparison for his siblings.

"Well, like I said I know his number I can always call him up for you, I don't mind." 

Klaus gasped, "Matty do you like my brother?" The bartender chuckled and looked at Klaus, "Cute, but not my type." He finished polishing a glass before looking at his watch. 

"You think my big brother wouldn't bottom for you," Klaus chuckled as Matt's eyes widened.

"The way he's dressed, Definitely not… are you implying something Klaus?" 

Klaus shrugged his shoulders as he stood from the bar stool, "I mean my little sister is possibly bi, kinda always thought at least one of the other 5 were, you know…. too." 

"Well I think you and me can both agree your brother doesn't look like the one to hook up with someone that looks like me nor you."

Klaus started moving away from the bar slowly, his strides wobbly and staggered, "You never know Matty old pal." He pushed open the bar door slipping out into the dark night.

"What are you gonna do… Walk home Klaus!? It's almost 2 in the morning and you're drunk out of your mind." Klaus waved his hand to shoot Ben away as he staggered down the sidewalk.

The alcohol already was hitting his system as he made his way to the familiar place he spent most of his adult life. A guy about his height stood at the end of the end of the dark alleyway as he made his way over to the familiar guy.

Klaus dug in his coat pocket and waved a wad of cash in front of the guy while the man pulled out a small bag filled with pills that his body was craving. They both exchanged items as Klaus quickly made his way out of the alleyway and walked down towards a busser area. 

Young women and men alike stood at a designated place. Almost all of them were dressed in clothes similarly to how he was dressed walking up to cars that would stop and pass by. Some climbed in the cars that stopped while others would walk back to their group of people as the car's drove away.

Eye quickly glued to him as he walked past the area. His chest was practically bare with the black lacy see through crop-top he had on along with his tight leather pants and leather heeled boots. His fur coat hung from his shoulders as he brought up his finger to fix his black lipstick, had been drinking not through a straw he knew it was probably smeared in most places.

He took notice of some cars that slowed down as certain windows were rolled down as he paid no attention to them. He wrapped his coat closed and crossed his arms over his chest and walked faster out of the area Klaus knew exactly what it was.

"Hey, love wanna head back to my place?" A man, about his age asked. He was leaning against his opened window with one arm while the other hung over the steering wheel. He Slowly followed in his car while Klaus picked up his pace and walked faster away from the creep.

"Sorry, my body's not for sale tonight." Klaus could hear the clicking of his boots as he reached into his pocket pulling out a lighter and a cigarette. Lighting it he noticed the humming of the engine that belonged to the car no longer sounded like it was a parrot on his shoulder. He succeeded in taking in a puff from the cancer stick before he heard Ben gasp behind him. A hand grabbed his upper arm spinning him back around.

The guy was now in front of him as his car was parked a few feet back, "then what's a cute thing like you doing dressed like this and in this area?" The man moved his hand to grab Klaus' wrist while his other one snaked to his lower back. The cigarette previously in his hand had dropped to the ground as surprise stunned him for a couple seconds.

His eyes roamed Klaus' body as Klaus tried to pull away out of the man's grip with no prevail. He noticed the situation caught the attention of some of the other men and women in the area as they looked over, some watching to see how far it goes.

"I was just passing through and this is how I always dress." His words slurred slightly, enough for the man to realise Klaus was drunk as the hand on his lower back moved slightly south and he was pulled closer to the man. His body was pressed slightly up against the perverts with his face lingering close to Klaus' ear.

"Well I can just give you a ride to where you're going, yeah? That way a pretty sweet boy like you is not in this area anymore and mistaken for something you're not." His words had this hidden white lie behind them and we're spoken with a lightness as if to not scare him away.

Before he could get his drunk, drugged induced body to cooperate he was tugged slightly to the car. He tried to pull away but his body was like jello and not listening to his brain. He heard chatter grow more amongst the group of people, some yelling things while he heard Ben doing the same, unable to physically do anything though. He was tugged closer to the car before he heard heavy fast footsteps near him.

"Hey!" 

'Thank goodness'

"Let go of him." The voice was familiar to Klaus.

A arm caught his weight as the man pushed him away scurrying to his car before driving away. He felt the presence of a taller man as the hand holding him up gingerly wrapped onto his petite frame. Klaus turned his head towards the hand that was still gripping onto him as he moved his gaze up to a familiar face.

"Matt….?" 

The 6'3 bartender in front of Klaus pulled him gently in the direction of his car and slid Klaus into the passenger seat before sliding into the driver's seat. "Are you okay?" He saw his eyes glance over Klaus before moving to start the car up.

"What-Why are you here?" Klaus didn't know why the guy he only saw when he wanted alcohol was here saving him from some creep.

"You know Klaus a _'Thank_ _you'_ would be in order for him?" Klaus ignored Ben's comment as he continued to look at Matt.

"Because I called your brother to come pick you up…..I didn't realise you ventured off that far in such a short amount of time." Klaus didn't know what to say, he didn't want Diego to come pick him up and be a bother to his brother. Yet in the same way he wanted to go home he also wanted to stay out on the streets where he could obtain all the drugs he wanted. His rested head on the window felt heavier and heavier, probably from the drugs and alcohol in his system but also due to the fact it was 2 in the morning. 

"It's always today…….. did something happen on this date, Klaus?" 

Klaus wanted to close his eyes and pretend the last month maybe few were all just a fever dream. The apocalypse coming twice, spending 3 years in the 60s and forming a cult, vietnam and meeting Dave, then meeting him again only to further insure he would get killed. Five coming back home and then finding out little sweet Vanya had very deadly powers probably more than all of them combined. 

Then Five left again this time no one knew for how long and once again the family was falling apart. Certain siblings acted as glue and once the glue left everything else crumbled and fell to the ground. He looked up to the rearview mirror seeing where Ben was sitting in the middle back seat.

"Yeah, something did...a long time ago." 

~

Diego chucked a file onto his desk startling the rest of the team that were in today. Everyone turned towards him as he ran his hand over his face before talking.

"10-year-boy, went missing 24 hours ago, was last seen at the park downtown by his 19 year old sister…… the case was handed off to us because nearby surveillance cameras caught him leaving with a man in the same grey trench coat and top hat as the 7-year-old girl who went missing four weeks ago in her own front yard." 

He threw the other file in his hand on his desk as he circled around and grabbed another file from the cabinets. His throat felt dry as he began to speak about the next thing.

"A 13-year-old boy that went missing 10 days ago was found this morning by some tourist in the middle of a forest…. The MO is consistent with our guy. He was sexually assulted and mutilated on many parts of his body." 

He put his weight against his desk as all the others started reading through the files. He didn't know how he was getting sleep at night with everything going on. If he could consider one to two hours sufficient sleep.

The sun had set hours ago as only ceiling LED lights and lamps kept the place illuminated. They all had loved ones waiting at their individual homes for them to return home to. 

"Hey, Hargreeves" his head shot up at his last name with Nico waving him over.

"The cap wants you in his office," he gestured over towards the office up against the wall by the far right. He nodded his head as he made his was over to the door, letting himself in and closing it behind him.

"What's up Lupo?" 

"The thing with your brother….have you had any leads on it." Diego took a breath and sent his gaze to the floor.

"Were not sure where he's at exactly, but nothing has drastically changed so we know he hasn't messed with the timeline yet." 

"And that missing persons report you filed on him?" 

Diego shoved his hands into his pockets, "Just a precaution in case anything did happen to him." A moment of silence passed by till Lupo spoke.

"You know Kraken you can take a day off every once and a blue moon, i've known you for sometime now and one thing I learned about you is that you never take a break." 

Diego scoffed, "a break is the last thing I need right now Lupo, what I  _ need _ is to find this bastard doing all this and get my little brother back home." 

Lupo lit a cigar in his mouth taking a puff out of it, "tell everyone to head home it's getting late, you guys are on this case like a pack of bloodhounds sent to track a sent." 

Diego turned around towards the door with his hand on the doorknob, "If only we were as good as the bloodhounds." Diego stepped through the door letting it fall back into place as he stepped out to the team. 

Moving feet followed by lights flickering off and goodbyes were sent each other's way as they all made it to their individual cars. Diego slid into the drivers seat as his phone buzzed in his pocket. He started the car before taking a glance at the caller ID.

He pulled the phone to his ear, "what's up Allison." 

"Did Klaus tell you anything about him leaving to do something today or where he was going." Allison's voice sounded bothered, almost frantic in a way.

"No why? What happened?" Diego had his hand on the steering wheel waiting for Allisons response.

"He just disappeared a couple hours ago without telling anyone, I thought he had been in his room the whole time but apparently not." 

Diego cursed under his breath as he started to drive to the academy, "by a couple of hours how long do you mean?" 

"I don't know six maybe seven?"

He gripped the steering wheel tighter as he turned the corner,  _ Klaus _ ...... "I'll be there in a couple minutes. Did you check the rest of the house?" 

He heard Allison talking to somebody then redirected back to him, "Vanya's checking the last of the places right now." 

Diego was worried and frustrated at the same time yet all he could tell them was he was on his way.

\----

"So you're just gonna let our little brother be out when we know he could possibly be hurt or other worse things!" Diego brought his hand up running it over his face.

The three eldest siblings were gathered in the living after they had searched the house for Klaus and no one could find him. Vanya was checking last places that she knew he might be which left the three alone with each other.

"Diego we don't even know if he's out doing something or not." Allison tried to argue with Diego as Luther stood beside her.

"Al you know exactly what he is doing right this second, don't play dumb!"

"She has a point, Diego, we're not gonna waste our time searching the city for him." Diego clenched his jaw at Luther's words as Vanya stepped into the room.

"Klaus isn't a waste of time you asshole." He tightened his fist as Vanya interrupted the conversation which Diego was glad she did.

"I still can't find him……. I'm really worried." Diego walked over, hooked his arm around Vanya and pulled her closer to him. He felt her arms wrap around him as he kept his hand on her back.

"Of all day's Luther, I think you'd at least care a bit…..just on this day." Diego's urge to try to knock some sense into the eldest sibling was held back by his sister hugging him.

"It's not that I don't care Diego, we all know what Klaus does!" Diego bit his lip trying to gather his words before speaking.

"What Luther?! What exactly does he do since you apparently know everything despite you hardly caring about him?!" 

"Diego...please don't." He looked down at Vanya as she laid her hand on his arm.

"He goes and gets high off his ass, we all know this Diego." Diego crossed his arms over his chest.

"Yeah and? Do you know about all the times he's OD? Or possibly all the times he's been pushed around in the streets… he actually tries Luther, he's the one that checks himself into rehab not anyone else, he wants help but because he's surrounded by ghosts all the time it permits him from getting clean." 

He moved away from Vanya out of fear of hurting her if he got mad and slightly paced up and down the small area where they were standing in the living room.

"Yes Ben died t-today, why do you think Klaus went out in the first place….when everything with Five happened he kept relapsing because what do you expect! If Five actually did fucking die this time I don't think he would want to know that!" He noticed when his voice slightly cracked when he brought up Ben and Five.

Silence brooded over the room with only the faint echo of Diego's voice still ringing in everyone's ears and the cracking of the wood in the fireplace. Allison moved over and sat in one of the chairs by the fireplace with her hand over her mouth, While Vanya slowly sat down on the couch behind them eyes trained to one spot on the ground. He saw the realisation hit them all that Five could indeed be gone forever.

That afternoon after they had run into his room, he had gone into the station and put in that missing person report. He didn't want to risk something else that happened to Five getting mixed up with them thinking he just time traveled somewhere. Even though they were all guaranteed that he time traveled somewhere, the fact that he was already gone for a month made them all more on edge.

The fear that crept up on him causing his mouth to go dry and his hands to become clammy made him sick to his stomach everytime they found a young boy's body dumped somewhere. The anxiety would leave but the thought of Five still being out somewhere in time or even possibly locked away somewhere would bombard his mind. 

"I'm going out to look for Klaus, It's your guys choice to join me if you want." He walked out of the living room gathering his keys and coat before exiting the Academy.

Something hung in the air that he couldn't quite place his finger on but knew the feeling too well. The inability to take a deep breath, like everything kept moving around him but he was in a standstill. Or exactly the opposite, the world was moving too fast and he couldn't catch up. Lights sped by as well as different establishments. This sparked a feeling Diego hated and wanted to get rid of 

The city quickly became ingrained into his head like a language, every twist and turn felt automatic. Searching the streets for their youngest brother relentlessly tired him out the first day he was gone. The second day felt like he was denying everything and anything. In a way he wished he was still in the same year somewhere where he could be found. Diego wanted to find him and wanted to bring the small boy home. 

He continued to search and look past different bars or clubs of any kind. At this point he didn't know if he was looking for the séance or Five. He hopped down at several places, most being able to say if they had seen his brother and they automatically knew who he was talking about. Others he pulled up a picture of Klaus on his phone and showed bouncers or bartenders. In the end he got a no in return or reference of another bar or club to check.

The shut his car door and slipped into the leather seats pulling his seat belt across his chest. After the 5th bar and the 3rd club he still hadn't the faintest clue of where Klaus was. A part of him wanted to turn back around and go home knowing their brother might return in the morning. But the word 'might' scared him and forced himself to keep driving. 

The ringing of his phone startled him as he started to doze off at the wheel, accidentally swerving into the other lane. He pulled into the nearest rest stop and took his phone looking at the caller ID.

It was someone of not much importance that he didn't bother to spend the ten seconds to put it into his contacts. But enough that he recognized the seven digits that were displayed on his screen.

"Hello?" He answered the phone unsure if the voice on the other end would be familiar or it was his sleep deprived brain telling him that the digits in that order made sense.

"Oh Diego right? It's Matt the bartender from the bar your little brother comes to." 

Everything quickly clicks in his head as he switches his turn signal on, pulling out of where he stopped momentarily and into the turning lane.

"Yeah, Is he there?"  _ Please _ let him be there.

"Not at the moment, he left a minute or two ago. But I can go grab him before he wanders too far or gets hurt." Even though this was just some bartender he could hear the slight worry in his tone for Klaus.

"Thank you, I'll be right there." The line ended abruptly on both ends but he didn't think about it, only trying to remember the way to the bar his brother frequented so very often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention that were at 97 kudos guys!!!!!!!!!! And over 2k reads ahhhhhh
> 
> I never really look at the numbers only for like the first 2 weeks that I post stuff just to see how it's doing but after that I rely on my email whenever I see comments come in and kudos so I never really understand how many their actually are until I come onto Archive and actually look at my statistics.
> 
> But for all the ones who have been reading since the beginning and even others just joining Thank you for the millionth time for enjoying and Wanting to read my writing.
> 
> Also, I set up my Tumblr finally!!!!! 
> 
> I mean I've had a Tumblr for years but I never really used it for posting or posted any of my old fanfictions ( which I'm glad I didn't) 
> 
> So now you guys can hop on over and give me prompts and fanfic suggestions or just leave messages and freak out about fandoms.... So follow the link below and it's also on my profile page😊
> 
> Here - http://xviruserrorx.tumblr.com
> 
> ~~~VirusError🌸


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